smokejumpers, based in
Deming, New Mexico, 1948 Prior to the full establishment of smokejumping, experiments with parachute insertion of firefighters were conducted in 1934 in
Utah and in the
Soviet Union. Earlier,
aerial firefighting experiments had been conducted with air delivery of equipment and water bombs. Although this first experiment was not pursued, another began in 1939 in the
Methow Valley,
Washington, where professional parachutists jumped into a variety of timbered and mountainous terrains, proving the feasibility of the idea. Smokejumping was first proposed in 1934 in the
Intermountain Region (Region 4), by Regional Forester T.V. Pearson. By 1939, the program began as an experiment in the Pacific Northwest Region (Region 6). The first official non-fire jump was made in the
Nez Perce National Forest in the Northern Region (Region 1) in 1940 by John Furgurson and Lester Gohler. The McCall smokejumper program was established in 1943; their base is on the Idaho shores of
Payette Lake. The base is near six
national forests: Nez Perce /
Clearwater,
Sawtooth, the
Boise,
Payette,
Salmon–Challis, and
Wallowa-Whitman. In 1942, permanent jump operations were established at
Winthrop, Washington, and Ninemile Camp, an abandoned
Civilian Conservation Corps camp (Camp Menard) a mile north of the Forest Service's Ninemile Remount Depot (
pack mule) at
Huson, Montana, about northwest of
Missoula. The first fire jumps were made by Rufus Robinson and
Earl Cooley at Rock Pillar near Marten Creek in the Nez Perce National Forest on July 12, 1940, out of Ninemile, followed shortly by a two-man fire jump out of Winthrop. In subsequent years, the Ninemile Camp operation moved to Missoula, where it became the Missoula Smokejumper Base. The Winthrop operation remained at its original location, as North Cascades Smokejumper Base. The "birthplace" of smokejumping continues to be debated between these two bases, the argument having persisted for about 70 years. The first smokejumper training camp was at the
Seeley Lake Ranger Station, over northeast of Missoula. The camp relocated to Camp Menard in July 1943. Here, when not fighting fires, the men spent much time putting up hay to feed the hundreds of
pack mules that carried supplies and equipment to guard stations and fire locations. To work fires, the men, organized into squads of eight to fifteen, were stationed at six strategic points, also known as "spike camps": Seeley Lake, Big Prairie, and Ninemile in Montana; Moose Creek and McCall in Idaho; and Redwood Ranger Station in southwestern Oregon at the edge of
Cave Junction. The men worked from other spike camps as well, including some in Washington.
Relations with the military After observing smokejumper training methods at
Seeley Lake in June 1940, then-Major
William C. Lee of the United States Army went on to become a major general and establish the
101st Airborne Division. In 1940, Army Dr. (Captain) Leo P. Martin was
trained by the U.S. Forest Service Smokejumper Parachute Training Center in Seeley Lake, Montana as the first 'para-doctor' (predecessor to USAF
Pararescue). In May 1978, members of the Army National Guard's
19th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and other western military units briefly began airborne training at the Missoula Smokejumper School. Although in years past, the army had conducted basic airborne training at various locations, it has since been consolidated at Fort Benning, (now called
Fort Moore) Georgia.
WWII-era The
555th Parachute Infantry Battalion gained fame as the only entirely black airborne unit in United States Army history. The 555th was allegedly not sent to combat because of segregation in the military during World War II. In May 1945, the unit was sent to the
West Coast of the United States to combat forest fires ignited by
incendiary balloons sent by the
Japanese Empire, an operation named "Operation Firefly". Although this threat did not fully materialize, the 555th fought numerous other forest fires while there. Stationed at
Pendleton Field, Oregon, with a detachment in
Chico, California, 300 unit members participated in firefighting missions throughout the
Pacific Northwest during the summer and fall of 1945, earning the nickname "Smoke Jumpers". The 555th made a total of 1,200 jumps to 36 fires, 19 from Pendleton and 17 from Chico. Only one member, PFC Malvin L. Brown, was killed on August 6, 1945, after falling during a let-down from a tree in the
Umpqua National Forest near
Roseburg, Oregon. His death is the first recorded smokejumper fatality during a fire jump. Around 240 workers from
Civilian Public Service (CPS) camps worked as smokejumpers during World War II. An initial group of 15 men began training in parachute rigging in May 1943 at Seeley Lake, and a total of 33 completed jump training in the middle of June, followed by two weeks of training in fire ground control and first aid. About 500 training jumps were made by the first 70 CPS smokejumpers in 1943, who went on to fight 31 fires that first season. Their number increased to 110 in 1944, and to 220 in 1945, as more equipment became available from the War Department. Twenty-nine jumpers battled the remote Bell Lake fire in September 1944, among 70 fires suppressed that year, and 179 were fought in the Missoula Region alone by September 1945, with other jumpers assigned to McCall and Cave Junction. The last CPS smokejumper left the service in January 1946. The Smokejumper Project had become a permanent establishment of the USFS in 1944. In 1946, the Missoula Region had 164 smokejumpers, many of them recent military veterans, college students, or recent college graduates. New bases were opened in
Grangeville, Idaho, and
West Yellowstone, Montana. Most smokejumpers of the era were not career professionals, but seasonal employees lured by the prospect of earning as much as $1,000 over a summer. They tended to be well-behaved, self-motivated, and responsible. Squad-sized and larger crews were supervised by foremen who were career wildland firefighters and experts in all types of wildfires.
Mann Gulch fire The fire with the greatest toll of smokejumper deaths was the
Mann Gulch fire in 1949, which occurred north of
Helena, Montana, at the
Gates of the Mountains area along the
Missouri River. Thirteen firefighters died during the blowup, twelve of them smokejumpers. This disaster directly led to the establishment of modern safety standards used by all wildland firefighters. Author
Norman Maclean described the incident in his book
Young Men and Fire (1992). ==Smokejumper crews worldwide==