Portraits of firefighters who died in helicopter crash slowly emerge

Later in the week names and ages were released, followed by face-shot photographs posted on a company website. By Friday, details about the dead had started to emerge, and it was at this point, as numbers and names were replaced by human narratives, that the true dimension of the tragedy became clear.

More than fire gypsies, these were promising young men, actively engaged in the business of building their lives. Their loss created holes, not only in their families, but also on college campuses and in communities up and down the Rogue Valley of southern Oregon.

"They were all great guys," said Ed Float, a 61-year-old former smoke jumper who is now a mainstay of Grayback Forestry, a pioneer firefighting contractor headquartered in Merlin, Ore.

The lost firefighters all were Graybackers, as they are called, and Float had trained most of them.

Stooped shoulders and a faraway gaze testifying to the emotional toll the week had taken, Float stood outside the company's Medford base Friday and tried to make these men come alive for reporters who had gathered in the parking lot.

He spoke in particular of Matt Hammer, a strapping, 23-year-old graduate of a small Christian college who had married his college sweetheart only a month before the crash.

"Matt Hammer," he said, saying the name with reverence. "Matt Hammer was special. Matt called me, he was at a seminary school and said he wanted a job. Typically I want to meet someone before we hire them. I want to look at their hands, see if they can work.

"But as I talked to Matt, I made him an offer right there. There was just something about him. One of his callings was an evangelist minister. I always had him do a morning prayer before we went on to a fire. He wasn't maybe the greatest preacher, but everything he said came from the heart."

Float said Hammer would have been his first choice to deliver a eulogy for the lost crew members. And then he shook his head and said no more.