Los Angeles County Fire Museum

The Los Angeles County Fire Museum will create a Wildland Firefighter Memorial to remember the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew who were killed outside Prescott, Arizona, on June 30, 2013. The memorial will also provide a place to remember other wildland firefighters who have lost their lives in the line of duty. To help fund the creation of the memorial, Dan Doke, uncle of Granite Mountain Hotshot crew member Kevin Woyjeck, has donated a fully restored 1925 Ford Model T to the museum. The museum auctioned off the car on November 22nd. It sold for $32,000. This was not high enough, in our opinion! Well, we were not the only ones to think so. An anonymous donor stated that the car did not get what it should have so donated $25,000 to the cause. Wow.. it keeps getting better. The buyer of the car donated it BACK to the Museum! It went back to auction on November 23rd and Joe came back to the Museum with $88,000 for the memorial. "Kevin put in a lot of hours at the museum," said Joe Woyjeck, a captain in the L.A. County Fire Department, the vice president of the museum, and Kevin's father. "It was at times his second home. I often introduced Kevin as the next president of the museum." Kevin was killed earlier this year, along with 18 of his fellow wildland firefighters, when they were sent in to battle a blaze outside of Prescott, Arizona. In one of the worst disasters in wildland firefighting history, the wind suddenly shifted on the crew and they were killed in the line of duty. "A lot of people don't realize that many of today's municipal firefighters started out as wildland firefighters," said Capt. Woyjeck, who has been on the L.A. County Fire Department for 34 years and began his career as a wildland firefighter. "Kevin was following in my footsteps, both at the museum and in the fire service. Despite the connection to Capt. Woyjeck, the museum feels that it's only appropriate to have a memorial dedicated to the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who were killed in the single greatest loss of life in the in the last 80 or so years of wildland firefighting service. It's also appropriate because wildland firefighting has been such an integral part of the career path for so many firefighters working today. Our Vice President, Joe Woyjeck, envisions the display as an interactive display. "It's more of a personal thing, with their faces, the fires, the dates. It will tell a story. Our 1930 Moreland will be the centerpiece of the wildland display," according to Joe. "It came to us from the State Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention. That department was the beginning of the Los Angeles County Fire Department that we know today. Stand by, we will bring you more information on this memorial as it progresses.