The videos were uploaded to the website Saturday morning and include a clip that was previously released in December 2013.
The Yarnell Hill Fire video clips, shot by other firefighters, take place in the moments before the Granite Mountain Hotshots were overtaken by the fire and progress to the point where their bodies were discovered.
The bodies have been edited out. The Forestry Division website says the video clips were obtained from the U.S. Forest Service through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The videos are presented as they were received, the website states and were redacted by the Forest Service. The Arizona Republic, under the state's public records law, has previously requested all forestry records on the Yarnell Hill Fire and the subsequent investigations into the deaths of the Granite Mountain hotshots.
From The Arizona Republic:
The videos were uploaded to the website Saturday morning and include a clip that was previously released in December 2013.
The clips range in length from fewer than 30 seconds to more than seven minutes. In some instances, the quality of the audio is clear. In others, the audio is muffled by wind or poor radio reception.
A previously released clip showed firefighters listening to radio traffic between Granite Mountain and command staff. The crew seemed puzzled about what was going on. One said he thought the crew was in a safety zone. Saws are heard in the background, which one of the firefighters said was not a good sign.
That clip contained the voice of Eric Marsh, the superintendent of the Granite Mountain crew, saying the hotshots were preparing a deployment site. The clip ended with command staff trying several times to reach the Granite Mountain crew by radio. The calls go unanswered.
The clips released Saturday occurred before and after that previously released video.
The clips recorded before seem to contain talk about fighting the fire and evacuating the remaining residents from the area.
The clips recorded afterward show the firefighters becoming increasingly concerned about the Granite Mountain crew. In those, the firefighters begin asking how long it has been since anyone has contacted the Granite Mountain crew.
"It's been at least 30 minutes," one man says.
At one point, another says, "Come on, Granite, let's hear you talk here."
Another: "It's a long time."
"Especially in this fuel type," one more says.
In another video, a man asks, "How many were in there?"
A short time later, a man says: "They were sitting in black. Eric decided there was a trail that kind of follows that ridge ... green. That lookout was down below and I went in to ... Eric. And that's when it picked up. I just happened to stumble upon the lookout."
That lookout was Brendan McDonough, the only surviving member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
He told The Republic on Saturday night that he had not seen the videos or heard the audio.
"It's not a surprise to me, but I haven't seen it. I don't know anything about it," said McDonough, who lives in Prescott and works for the Boise, Idaho-based Wildland Firefighter Foundation.
"I try to stay out of the politics as much as possible," he said of the footage. "It's a huge tragedy, and there's a lot more people than me involved, and there's a lot more people that know more than I do.
"I just have the memories of the times with my brothers."
Other videos show the firefighters planning their attempt to rescue the Granite Mountain crew and making their way to the area — once a tangle of scrub oak, bear grass and agave — where the hotshots tried to survive beneath emergency blankets as a wall of flames overtook them.
In a video, the firefighters discussed if it would be possible to get a helicopter to the location and if that would be helpful.
Once the bodies are found, the emotion in their voices is apparent.
At one point a voice can be heard uttering a profanity and confirming that the bodies of the Granite Mountain crew have been found.
A firefighter is heard over the radio saying, "True, and just confirming, no medical treatment is needed at this time."
A few weeks ago, families of the Granite Mountain had been warned by J.P. Vicente, a Prescott fire captain, that the videos might be released.
Families were concerned that the videos might show the bodies of their loved ones at the deployment site. They have asked that no such footage or photographs be made public. But they were torn, too, because the videos and accompanying audio also might give them new information.
Roxanne Warneke, whose husband, Billy Warneke, was one of the 19 men killed, watched the videos in her Marana home. For her, there still are questions. Would the redacted portions have provided those answers?
In one of the video clips, just 29 seconds long, a man says, "I don't have anybody else that I feel comfortable sending that way."
Warneke says that sounds as if someone had specifically sent the Granite Mountain crew into the area where they were trapped and killed.
"We'll never understand. We will always ask why," says Tammy Misner, whose son, Sean Misner, was a Granite Mountain hotshot.
In her home in Santa Ynez, Calif., Misner watched the videos and listened, hearing the bewilderment, the fear and then sadness in the men's voices.
"It was just disturbing to look at and watch, but at the same time I don't think I heard anything that would make any changes to what we already feel we know happened," Misner says.
"You're watching this, and you know what's going on. Our guys are gone."
Carrie Dennett, a state forestry spokeswoman, did not respond to The Arizona Republic's multiple requests to speak about the footage.
About two weeks ago, the newspaper asked Dennett and other state officials if they were aware of previously unreleased footage pertaining to the Yarnell Hill Fire. The officials said they were not aware of any such footage.
In her Saturday email to the newspaper, Dennett wrote that state forestry "received the additional footage yesterday (Nov. 7) from the US Forest Service." The footage was uploaded Saturday to state forestry's website.
Attorney Patrick McGroder, who represents families of the fallen hotshots in wrongful-death and benefit legal cases, had not seen the footage on Saturday night. He criticized state forestry's handling of the release, saying officials were insensitive and lacked decency.
"Whatever substance there is on those videos, to release those in the way that the state forestry department has has chosen to do it speaks to the enormity of the insensitivity to the victims and the families of the hotshots," McGroder said.
"I've not seen them and how substantive they are, but you're still dealing with very tender, sensitive victims of this tragedy, and you would think that the state forestry department would at least have the decency to at least contact the victims' survivors to let them know it was going to be released and to give them the opportunity to either see the videos or have the opportunity to determine whether there's anything that might cause them any further injury and damage."
Arizona State Forestry Division Yarnell Hill Fire LODD FOIA Video Clips Wildfires Today: http://wildfirestoday.blogspot.com/2014/11/arizona-state-forestry-division-yarnell.html
Yarnell Hill Fire Report: https://azsf.az.gov/sites/default/files/YHR_Data_092813_0.pdf
Arizona republic FOIA Story: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/11/08/arizona-yarnell-fire-videos-released/18750369/
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