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HOLDEN - When it was Shane Koyle's turn to talk about his brother, he removed the flowers from around the podium and replaced them with an elk antler rack.
Koyle's brother, Spencer S. Koyle, the wildland firefighter who died Aug. 17 in a blaze near Holden, was an enthusiastic hunter. Shane Koyle used six rungs on the rack to illustrate points he wanted to make about his brother.
"Spencer lost his life doing what he loved second best," Shane Koyle said. "He loved his family best."
Family, friends and firefighters from Utah and the West gathered Wednesday to remember Spencer Koyle. More than 500 people - a number about equal to Holden's entire population - most wearing the purple ribbon that is the symbol of firefighters who died in action, attended the memorial and graveside services.
More than 100 of those in attendance were wildland firefighters dressed in their uniforms - green pants and yellow long-sleeve shirts. Many of the shirts were stained with soot.
The family held a viewing Tuesday night. Another viewing was scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday at the LDS meeting house, but mourners arrived early and a line snaked through the meeting house.
By the time the 11 a.m. memorial service began, attendees who couldn't find a chair in one of the the meeting house's rooms were standing along the wall in the cultural center. Spencer Koyle's family, which included his wife Nichole Koyle and their three children, ages 7, 4 and 18 months, sat in the sanctuary with federal and local authorities, including Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr.
In his eulogy, Shane Koyle wrote key words on note cards and pinned them onto the rack. The words conveyed six characteristics of Spencer Koyle: his faith, his belief in prayer, the example he set for others, his love for others, his ability to endure and what Shane Koyle called his brother's attempt to live as Jesus Christ did.
As Shane Koyle explained the characteristics, he told stories of his older brother that evoked giggles from a congregation that was heard crying and sniffling throughout the service. The stories included tales of Spencer Koyle being bucked from a horse, trying to tease a mountain lion in a tree and how he would dance and sing after killing a deer.
"Those are some of the memories I'm going to miss most about Spencer, how excited he would get," Shane Koyle said.
Spencer Koyle, 33, of Holden, worked 15 years as a wildland firefighter for the Bureau of Land Management, advancing to a fire operations supervisor. Aug. 17, he was among about 40 firefighters fighting the Devil's Den fire east of Oak City.
According to preliminary findings by the BLM, Koyle left the other firefighters to scout the blaze's advancement. Then the winds shifted, pushing the fire toward him.
When he couldn't outrun the flames, Koyle deployed his fire shelter, BLM said. But the shelters are not meant to withstand flames.
A search team later found Koyle's body.
"Spencer always had a twinkle in his eye about firefighting," said Shelly Coray, Spencer Koyle's sister and also a wildland firefighter, during the memorial service, "and when he had that twinkle in his eye, you knew he loved his job."
After the service, family serving as pallbearers carried Spencer Koyle's casket out of the meeting house and to a fire engine used by his firefighter crew. Wildland firefighters were lined on both sides of the pallbearers and held a salute as they walked past.
The engine carried the casket through Holden and up a hill on the town's east edge to a cemetery. Lined on Main Street as the engine drove were fire engines from departments throughout central and western Utah as well as departments from Idaho, Arizona and Wyoming. Firefighters walked behind the engine carrying Spencer Koyle's casket.
At the cemetery, a single-engine air tanker flew over the grave and the mourners. A rifle company from the American Legion post in Fillmore gave a 21-gun salute. Firefighters lowered a flag hanging from an extended fire engine ladder.
Crying, Sherry Hirst, the BLM field office manager from Fillmore, where Spencer Koyle was based, presented the flag to Nichole Koyle.
After the service, Kevin Greenhalgh, a Richfield-based wildland firefighter who said he worked with Koyle for 13 years, called Koyle one of the best firefighters.
"It just makes me rethink and refocus to keep myself and everybody working with me safe," Greenhalgh said. "It easily could have been any one of us because we've all been there with Spencer."
Audio from the memorial service was broadcast to an LDS stake center in Fillmore.
The Devil's Den fire was still burning on Wednesday. It had burned about 7,850 acres with 15 percent containment. About 50 structures are considered threatened, but there are no evacuations.