Smokejumper crews leap from airplanes to confront wildfires from the sky, encountering danger before even reaching the flames.
Big wildfires like the York fire in California and the blaze in Lahaina, Hawaii, have been big news stories recently. But there are many more fires that never make the headlines, and that's sometimes due to the quick-reacting smokejumper crews.
"It takes a village," said Daniel Hottle of the U.S. Forest Service, northern region."As far as the Forest Service and the Wildland Firefighting community goes, it takes planners, it takes environmental planners, it takes fire managers to look at a landscape and find out exactly what it needs. And then it boils down, all the way down, to the individual firefighter, so smokejumpers play a big role in that.
"Smokejumping was created to be able to insert wildland firefighters into areas of the forest that are remote and either unable to be accessed by foot or vehicle or would be untimely to do so. So let's say there's lightning that comes through the area and there's remote wildfires, we can get there quickly," said smokejumper Madison Whittemore.
Their jumpsuits are made of Kevlar to protect them from being scraped by trees and brush, and under the suits are pants and shirts made of flame-resistant Nomex. "When we initially fly to the fire, we are looking at how we can safely get in, but we're also already looking at potential ways for us to get out," said smokejumper Steven Gerard.
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