00-15CC Smoke Jumpers Christmas CardFrom a humble but daring experimental start in the Chelan (later Okanogan) National Forest, Washington, in 1938, Forest Service Smokejumping activities progressed rapidly in the early 1940s and thereafter into a full-fledged segment of the total forest fire-control program. Smokejumping has grown from just a few crews of relatively untrained men jumping to fires from Ford Tri-motor and Travelair planes to today's thousands of well-trained jumpers in modern aricraft playing a major role in battling forest fires.In September 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower honored the smokejumpers by dedicating the Forest Service Aerial Fire Depot, just west of Missoula, Montana. Smokejumping has its detractors in the politics of wild-land fire. Resistance came in the 1980s when the first female candidates stepped into jumper bases, braved a chilly reception and changed the makeup of the crews in the future. After World War II, aircraft such as the DC-3s and converted World War II planes such as the Lockheed Ventura pictured in this oil painting, and today's hundreds of well-trained smokejumpers and hotshot crews in modern aircraft, have played and are playing a mojor role in battling forest fires. Fortunately, since the 1990s we in the West have had 90% of our country's wild-land fire fighting resources stationed in our backyard, including smokejumper bases and state-of-the-art lightning detection devices. The National Center in Boise, Idaho can mobilize over 15,000 fire fighters in less than three days? "People believe," explained our National Park Director, "we have such technological power that we can always control fire. We can't." |
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