State lawmakers took the first steps Wednesday to honoring assassinated reporter Don Bolles in the same way Arizona honors various veterans, pioneer women, the Ten Commandments and Jesuit missionary Father Kino. Without dissent the House Government Committee authorized placement of a memorial to The Arizona Republic investigative reporter in Wesley Bolin Plaza.

Arizona’s leading education organizations have launched a long-term, statewide effort aimed at providing the financial assistance necessary to meet the education needs of the children and families of the 19 firefighters who died battling the Yarnell Hill wildfire.

PRESCOTT VALLEY ai??i?? Firefighters William Benitez and Lou Larosa were fresh out of the New York City Fire Department when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people, including hundreds of first responders.

YARNELL ai??i?? Juliann Ashcraft had just put the kids down for a nap when her cellphone buzzed. It was a text from Andrew, her husband of seven years and, still, her best friend. "This is my lunch spot," he wrote beneath a photo of hard-hatted firefighters sitting on boulders, watching smoke rise on the horizon. "too bad lunch was an MRE," the text concluded. It was 2:16 p.m. on June 30.

PRESCOTT ai??i?? Eric Marsh built the Granite Mountain Hotshots from nothing ai??i?? and died trying to protect the crew that friends say constituted his life's work.

PRESCOTT ai??i?? Three days after 19 firefighters perished in a wildfire, questions over what exactly went wrong loomed largest. Investigators from across the U.S. will be working this week to try to answer that, examining radio logs, the site of the tragedy and weather reports.

SANTA FE, N.M. ai??i?? Gov. Susana Martinez has ordered that New Mexico state flags be flown at half-staff until sunset Friday in honor of the firefighters killed while fighting an Arizona wildfire.

PRESCOTT ai??i?? In a heartbreaking sight, a long line of vans from a coroner's office carried the bodies of 19 elite firefighters out of the tiny mountain town of Yarnell on Monday, as the wind-driven wildfire that claimed the men's lives burned out of control. About 200 more firefighters arrived to the scorching mountains, doubling the number of firefighters battling the blaze, ignited by lightning.

PRESCOTT ai??i?? They were fathers and expectant fathers. High school football players and former Marines. Smoke-eaters' sons and first-generation firefighters. What bound the members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots together was a "love of hard work and arduous adventure," and a willingness to risk their lives to protect others. And now, 19 families share a bond of grief.

PRESCOTT ai??i?? Nineteen members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, based in Prescott, Ariz., were killed Sunday when a windblown wildfire overcame them north of Phoenix. It was the deadliest single day for U.S. firefighters since Sept. 11. Fourteen of the victims were in their 20s. Here are the stories of those who died: