Governor Kay Ivey has ordered flags lowered to half-staff statewide Tuesday in honor of Sydney Kathryne Watson, a 27-year-old U.S. Wildland Fire Service firefighter from Corner who died battling a wildfire in western Colorado last month.

Watson was one of three firefighters killed June 27 in a “burnover” incident while conducting initial attack operations on the Knowles Fire near the Colorado-Utah border, according to federal officials. Two additional firefighters were injured in the same incident and are receiving medical care.

In her directive to all state agencies, Ivey wrote that flags will fly at half-staff “within the State Capitol Complex in Montgomery and statewide” from sunrise until sunset on Tuesday, July 7, 2026 — the day of Watson’s interment.

A native of Corner in Jefferson County, Watson was a graduate of Corner High School, the University of Tennessee-Southern, where she played softball, and Martin Methodist College. After earning a degree in wildlife biology, she pursued several conservation-related internships before committing to a career in wildland fire management, according to Ivey’s office.

She worked for North Carolina State Parks Fire Management and the U.S. Forest Service in Arizona’s Prescott National Forest before being assigned to the newly formed U.S. Wildland Fire Service. She was part of a Rifle, Colorado, helitack crew flown in to help contain the fast-moving Knowles Fire when she and two colleagues were overtaken by flames and forced to deploy emergency fire shelters, a last-resort safety measure.

The other firefighters killed were identified by federal officials as Emily Barker, 38, of Clinton Township, Michigan, and Nick Hutcherson, 27, of Glendale, Arizona — both with the U.S. Forest Service. Their deaths mark the first line-of-duty fatalities for the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, which launched in January to coordinate firefighting on public lands.

“We mourn the loss of three firefighters who answered the call to protect others and made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their fellow citizens,” U.S. Wildland Fire Service Chief Brian Fennessy said following the incident.

“All of Alabama joins in mourning her loss and honoring her memory,” Ivey wrote of Watson.

A serious accident investigation team has been mobilized to review the circumstances of the burnover.