More than 1000 people packed an Arizona university gym to honour the bravery and sacrifice of 19 elite firefighters who died battling a huge wildfire.

Those in the crowd rocked children in their arms, wiped away tears and applauded robustly after each eulogy, often rising to their feet. Speakers quoted heavily from scripture and described the "Hotshot" firefighters' deaths as Christ-like.

Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo spoke in a shaky voice and paused frequently. He said the firefighters' families, the Prescott Fire Department, the city of Prescott, the state of Arizona and the nation had all lost.

The firefighters were trapped by the raging wildfire and unfurled their foil-lined, heat-resistant tarpaulins and rushed to cover themselves on the ground. But that last, desperate line of defence could not save them from the flames that swept over them.

It was America's biggest loss of firefighters in a wildfire in 80 years.

Sunday's tragedy all but wiped out the 20-member Granite Mountain Hotshots, a unit based at Prescott, authorities said, as the last of the bodies were retrieved from the mountain in the town of Yarnell. Only one member survived because he was moving the unit's fire engine at the time.

The lightning-sparked fire – which spread to 13 square miles by yesterday morning – destroyed about 50 homes and threatened 250 others around the town of Yarnell, about 85 miles north west of Phoenix.

Evacuated residents huddled in emergency shelters and local restaurants, watching their homes burn on TV as flames lit up the night sky in the forest above the town.