Smokejumpers from the Missoula, Montana base are going to star in a new one-hour special on CMT, appropriately named SMOKEJUMPERS, on Friday night, April 23 at 10 p.m., ET/PT. Currently planned to be just a one-time special, the senior vice president of programming for CMT, Mary Beth Cunin, was quoted as saying that if the special is successful, they could green-light the show for a full year of episodes.

In 2008, a film crew from Megalomedia followed the Missoula jumpers as they trained and fought fires. They did not parachute from a DC-3, Shorts Sherpa C-23, or Twin Otter aircraft with the jumpers, but met them on the ground at fires. (Two smokejumper bases have USFS-owned DC-3 aircraft that have been converted to turbo prop machines–Missoula and McCall, Idaho.)

I talked with Missoula smokejumper Rogers Warren who explained that in 2008 the film crew had a special use permit from the US Forest Service which made it possible for them to film the jumpers and later use the footage for commercial purposes. A public affairs officer from the USFS accompanied the film crew most of the time.

Here is an excerpt from a press release from CMT about the program:

NASHVILLE – April 7, 2010 – CMT’s Friday night is getting hotter with the premiere of a new one-hour special, SMOKEJUMPERS, premiering on Friday, April 23 at 10:00 p.m., ET/PT. The special is the third piece of programming in CMT’s newly branded Friday night of adventure programming, CMT ADVENTURE COUNTRY, and immediately follows new episodes of GATOR 911 and DANGER COAST.

With hand tools, explosives, and the ability to think fast on their feet, SMOKEJUMPERS have one job – to contain the fire they are set to extinguish. But first, they must get there by parachuting into often unchartered territory and treacherous forests and mountains. The men and women of SMOKEJUMPERS show how they can often be the only hope to stop a fire burning out of control, and why they are the most important lines of defense against one of the deadliest natural disasters. Success means saving land, but failure could mean losing lives, property and costing millions of dollars in damage. The one-hour special, offers an inside look at this dangerous profession – from the nervous rookie jumper, to the twenty-year veteran, the thrill-seeking big-wave surfer, and the family man with a master’s degree. These SMOKEJUMPERS share one goal – to stop a potentially devastating and dangerous force of nature.

SMOKEJUMPERS is produced by Megalomedia, with Jonathan Nowzaradan as Executive Producer. Melanie Moreau and Bob Kusbit serve as Executive Producers for CMT.

The Danger Coast series, which follows waterborne firefighters with the Miami-Dade Fire Department, also looks interesting. Episode #102 will air Friday, April 23, at 9:30 ET, just before Smokejumpers.

Here are some photos from the CMT Smokejumper site:

More photos are below. Continue reading →

Photo: The Earl Cooley family

Another article has appeared about the life of Earl Cooley, one of the first smokejumpers, who died on November 9 at the age of 98. This one is in, surprisingly, The Economist, a British publication. Here is how it begins:

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SEEN from the height of a passenger jet, the mountains of Idaho and western Montana look like the grey, wrinkled hide of a dinosaur. Closer up, from a twin-engine aircraft, those wrinkles become thousands of conifers marching over the steep and broken ground. Closer still—“My God! My chute’s not opening! Something’s wrong!”—that’s a spruce you’re plunging into, your tardy parachute lines tangling round your neck and your flailing legs kicking off branches a hundred feet above the ground. Luckily, you’re alive. Luckier still, you have a rope in your trouser pocket that lets you rappel down from the tree. And you haven’t even got to the fire yet.

Such was Earl Cooley’s introduction, on July 12th 1940 when he was 28, to the completely new science of smokejumping. After years spent trying to douse the forest fires of America’s West from aircraft—labouring skywards with water stowed in five-gallon cans and beer barrels—this was the first attempt to parachute firefighters to blazes too remote to reach by road. In the 22 years Mr Cooley was to spend doing it, it was also his closest call. He reflected later that if the spruce had not saved him, the smokejumping programme itself would not have survived—let alone become the success it is today, with 1,432 jumps made for the Forest Service last year. Back then, too many people thought it crazy. One Montana regional forester, a big-shot called Evan Kelly, had already complained to Washington that it was a waste of “honest suppression money”—dollars spent putting out fires in the old, plodding, non-flamboyant way.

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The rest of the article is HERE.

Thanks Jim

The Missoulian has an excellent article about a program at the Missoula smokejumper base which introduces kids to the concept of jumping out of perfectly good airplanes into forest fires. (Is this child abuse?)

Here is an excerpt:

Fourteen-year-old Gunnar Nabozney took a Junior Smokejumper class a few days ago.

Eight-year-old Molly White smiles behind the mask of a jump helmet at the end of her Junior Smokejumper camp last week. Photo by KURT WILSON/Missoulian

It’s not entirely clear he needed it, as he seemed to already know plenty about fires, airplanes and parachutes.

“Isn’t this the same system that paratroopers used in World War II?” Nabozney asked smokejumper Travis Parker as the class looked about a DC-3 jump plane.

“Pretty much, although we do things a little differently than they did,” a surprised Parker said to Nabozney, one of five kids taking part in the class sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service Smokejumper Center. “In fact, they learned how to do this by watching how we did it way back then.”

Despite his wealth of knowledge, Gunnar, his brother Joren and three other youngsters learned a lot during the one-day smokejumper program.

“We’ve had about 100 kids go through this this summer, and they really seem to enjoy it,” said Molly Cottrell, who taught the class with an assist from Parker and folks at the National Weather Service.

The kids come away with a heightened sense of what it means to be a smokejumper. But they also learned about fire, its behavior and how that behavior is influenced by weather.

“It’s pretty neat stuff,” 10-year-old Joren Nabozney said.

Thanks Dick

KGW.com has an article about a smokejumper that you should read. Sara Brown, on her 88th jump, collided with another jumper while decending to a fire. Her chute collapsed, she fell from 100 feet, and shattered her right leg.

She has endured a lengthy recovery, but last week, she was honored with the Smokejumper Courage Award from the National Smokejumpers Association

Smokejumpers who used to work out of the Siskiyou Smokejumper Base south of Cave Junction, Oregon are returning this week to restore the parachute loft.

An excerpt from the Mail Tribune:

CAVE JUNCTION — Former smokejumpers whose lives once depended on parachutes inspected, repaired and packed at the former Siskiyou Smokejumper Base are returning to help restore the nation’s oldest smokejumper parachute loft.

The retired smokejumpers will be joined today by local volunteers in restoring the parachute loft at the former Siskiyou Smokejumper Base, according to Gary Buck, a retired smokejumper who made his first fire jump in 1966 from the base.

Located at the Illinois Valley Airport, half a dozen miles south of Cave Junction, the base was established in 1943.

The first smokejumper base was established in 1940 in Montana, a year after the first experimental jumps were made at Winthrop, Wash. Another base was built in McCall, Idaho, the same year as the Siskiyou base. The bases in Montana, Idaho and Washington were moved and the original buildings were destroyed, according to Buck.

The Siskiyou base is the last of the original smokejumper bases in American history still standing in its original location with its original buildings, he said.

The parachute loft, built in 1948, is the oldest of any smokejumper base in North America.

Buck is the president of the nonprofit Siskiyou Smokejumper Base Museum Project, a group whose mission is to establish a smokejumper museum at the base, which closed in 1981. Thanks to the group’s efforts, the base has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

About 20 former smokejumpers are expected to show up this week to help restore the old loft, said project secretary Roger Brandt. That includes Cave Junction residents Bob Nolan and Paul Block, two smokejumpers who helped build structures on the base in 1950, he said.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

Thanks Kelly.