Events

2025 MEMORIAL CEREMONY June 14, 2025 at 12:00 p.m.

United States Air Force Firefighter Captain David Thomas Lambers passed away on November 12, 2023 after a courageous battle with service-related cancer.

Lambers was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and raised in Bozeman, Montana. His childhood was carefree, with countless good times playing with friends and family. The Lambers family was loving, close-knit, and they spent a lot of time playing with siblings, cousins, and friends. Additionally, Lambers enjoyed playing video games, bowling, baseball, and enjoying the outdoors. Later on, he and his wife, April, met at the Margarita Meltdown, a fundraiser from Eagle Mount.

As a child, Lambers had a dream of becoming a firefighter and helping others. In 2011, he enlisted in the US Army and served as Sergeant First Class. In 2013, he joined the Montana Air National Guard (MANG) Airport Fire Department, where he received his status as Captain. Most recently, Lambers joined the US Air Force where he earned his rank of Staff Sergeant. Above all, he loved helping others and enjoyed the sense of family and community he received from each of his careers. Lambers’ main goals were to be a part of something bigger than himself, and upon transferring to the Air Force, he aspired to become the Chief of the station at MANG. Throughout his honorable 12 years of service, Lambers earned numerous awards, including, but not limited to two Meritorious Service Medals, a National Defense Service Medal, a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, an Army Service Ribbon, an Overseas Service Ribbon, and a Medal of Valor. Lambers was diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Non-Small Cell Squamous Lung Cancer due to his service, but he was determined to beat it. He fought a hard fight; however, the illness ultimately took his life.

John Norris Raisler, age 59, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly while training for this upcoming fire season. He was born to Warren and Dee Raisler on July 23, 1964, in Bozeman, MT. He was joined by his brother, Randy, on July 6, 1965, who predeceased him.
John grew up all over the country on various ranches and graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Education in 1989. He moved to Plevna where he taught for 5 years before finishing his grades 7-12 teaching career in Fromberg in 1998. John was a proactive teacher as he designed several courses and initiated an agricultural exchange program between Russian and Montanan students in Fromberg. John loved to teach and spent the next roughly 26 years teaching fire courses to many individuals throughout Eastern Montana. He LOVED the Band of Brothers and Sisters! They shared a mutual respect and admiration for each other. John spent a total of 34 years in fire. He loved training others and found the Staff Rides very fulfilling because they applied the decisions made during historic battles toward modern firefighting tactics and leadership. Often, those same tactics bled into his parenting philosophies.
Being a volunteer was John’s love language to his Church and community. He was a 4th degree Knight and one heck of a “Pig Dad,” and grill master in 4-H! He spent much time “slinging hash” for the church breakfasts as well as delivering Meals on Wheels, “selling explosives (fireworks) to children,” at deeply discounted prices and was always the last to leave when it came to helping clean up after events such weddings or banquets. He would not be outworked!
John met his future wife, Lori, as a favor for a friend. It worked out that both couples were happily married for at least 28 years. He and Lori enjoyed being empty nesters and truly loved each other’s company. John and Lori have four children; Laina (Trevor); Joel, Katrina and Jill. His family was very important to him, and he made sure their vehicles all ran, their guns were sighted in, and that his home cooked “grub” would make the kids “squeal with delight!” He loved to nickname common items such as “stupid card” (smart card to scan and enter his place of work); “kid buckets” (car seats); “change the oil” (change a kid’s diaper with his yellow dishwashing gloves on); and the “fire children” were the “Tree Row Firefighters” who fought fire on severity. His favorite was the “used meat” section at Reynolds where he could find yummy meats on discount.

Juliana Turchetti, a trailblazing Brazilian aerial firefighter and owner of Springfield, Illinois-based Aviatori Coffee, died Wednesday while fighting a fire in Montana.

Working on behalf of Idaho-based company Dauntless Air, the 45-year-old native of Minas Gerais was flying a FireBoss plane contracted to the U.S. Forest Service in order to fight a man-made fire when the plane crashed. Turchetti was the only person on board. Local and federal authorities said the accident is under investigation.

After deciding at the age of 12 that her calling was in the sky, Turchetti took her first flight as a flight attendant in Brazil at age 21 in order to save money to become a pilot. She would eventually accrue more than 6,000 flight hours while earning numerous piloting and instructors’ licenses, according to her LinkedIn profile. She was also a regular contributor to the B2B news publication AgAir in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Turchetti moved to the United States in 2017, pursuing aviation jobs in Nevada, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Texas before eventually landing in the city of Havana, Illinois, to fly agricultural planes.

At the time of Juliana’s death, she was working for a contractor and the USFS.