Assistants adjust clothing and parachutes FIRE BIRDS By Giacinta Bradley Koontz
Although common now, the concept of fi refi ghting from the air was not an easy sell to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) before WWII because aircraft had not yet been designed for safely deploying men and equipment using parachutes. In 1939, Henry Ford’s all-metal Trimotor airplane quickly became the USFS’s best hope to use in an experimental parachute program.
THE FIRST SMOKEJUMPERS With government funding, training began in Washington. By the summer of 1940, the USFS had recruited suffi cient volunteer rangers and contracted with Johnson Flying Service (JFS) of Missoula, MT, to provide Travelairs, Trimotors and their crews. The Eagle Parachute Company (of Pennsylvania) supplied parachutes, protective clothing, and instructors. Earl Cooley (1911-2009) was among the fi rst to parachute into a forest and join ground crews. His personal story is told well in his book, “Trimotor and Trail,” which I bought from Cooley during 1994. I was attracted to the colorful painting of a Ford Trimotor circling over a fl aming forest on the cover, but of course this book wasn’t about Trimotors — it was about the men who parachuted out of them. Then, as now, U.S. forests and wild lands were divided into USFS Regions, manned by ranger stations and/or towers for spotting fi res. Full-time rangers like Cooley trained seasonal fi refi ghters who often returned to college in the fall. Crews hunted and fi shed for food where supplies could not be packed in. Mules, horses and manpower created trails through forests, over boulders and ravines. Smokejumpers had the added responsibility to build their own cabins and lofts with 30-foot towers in which to hang parachutes. Recruits for the parachute program were required to pass
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ROTC cadet physical exams at Ft. Missoula, MT. Crews were trained in specialized assignments for rigging and instructing other fi refi ghters.
In the fi rst few days trainees learned how to pack a parachute and how to pack and drop cargo. They also watched “dummies” being dropped from the air. After a very brief description of parachute apparatus, Cooley’s instructor simply said, “Tomorrow we jump.” The fi rst jumps were made at Blanchard Flats near
Clearwater Junction, MT, from the open door of a Travelair owned by JFS. Cooley’s fi rst practice jump went well. “Two fi rsts for me that day,” Cooley recalled, “my fi rst parachute jump and my fi rst ride in an airplane.” Just weeks later, on July 12, 1940, Cooley and Rufus Robinson were chosen to make the fi rst offi cial parachute jump into a fi re at Martin Creek in the Nezperce Forest in Idaho. Cooley landed in a spruce tree, leaving his chute hung up in branches while he rushed to collect gear dropped with burlap parachutes. He and Robinson managed to contain the fi re, meeting up with an incredulous ground crew leading pack mules and horses. Cooley later wrote,
“And so ended the fi rst fi re jump in the history of the USFS and the culmination of the experimental project of smokejumping. That jump introduced a new fi refi ghting technique and paved the way for many advancements that followed in my 38 years with the Forest Service, much of it spent in the parachute project.”
In the following years before and during WWII,
smokejumping crews perfected their parachuting skills mostly by trial and sometimes, fatal error. When manpower was scarce throughout the war, Cooley supervised conscientious objector volunteer crews which he praised for their dedication and skills. USFS crews were segregated, as they were in the U.S. military at the time. The all-black 555th Parachute Battalion was instrumental in protecting NW forests from the threat of fi res caused by Japanese balloon bombs.
for Smokejumpers about to fl y to a fi re in the Travelair used by the U.S. Forest Service (circa 1940s, Montana). Smokejumpers continue to work out of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management base camps in Alaska, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. Photo: Courtesy of the National Museum of Forest Service History
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