Smokejumper Tim Hart passes away

Tim Hart. USFS photo
Tim Hart. USFS photo.

Tim Hart, the smokejumper critically injured May 24 in a hard landing while parachuting into the Eicks Fire in New Mexico has passed away. Tim had been flown via air ambulance to a hospital in El Paso, Texas where he has been treated for the last 11 days.

The U.S. Forest Service announced the fatality today in an email sent by Laurel Beth McClean, Executive Assistant to FS Chief Vicki Christiansen, on behalf of the Chief.

“I am deeply saddened to share with you that Tim Hart, a smokejumper from the West Yellowstone Smokejumper Base in Montana, passed away last night as a result of injuries he sustained when jumping on the Eiks Fire in New Mexico on May 24.

“Tim grew up in Illinois and lived with his wife in Cody, Wyoming.  During his firefighting career Tim was an Engine Crew Member on the Coconino, Fremont-Winema, and Shoshone National Forests.  He was a Lead Firefighter on the Ashville and Ruby Mountain (with the BLM) Hotshot Crews.  He moved to Grangeville, Idaho as a Rookie Smokejumper in 2016.   In 2019, he transitioned to West Yellowstone and the Custer Gallatin National Forest first as a Squad Leader and then as a Spotter.   His life touched many people across the Forest Service and the wildland fire community.  He will be greatly missed.

“My heart goes out to Tim’s family, friends and colleagues, and I ask all of you to keep them in your thoughts and prayers.  And, please continue to look out for each other.  I draw my strength, every day, from the compassion and dedication each of you exhibit in service to our nation.  During times of great loss, as we and our partners have experienced over the past week, we pause to reflect on the lives we have lost and the void that can never be filled – and we hold on to, and sustain each other.”


Condolences Mailing Address:

c/o Shoshone National Forest
808 Meadow Lane Ave., Cody, WY 82414

Shoshone National Forest will ensure families receive all condolences.

Tim Hart. USFS photo
Tim Hart. USFS photo.

We send out our sincere condolences to Mr. Hart’s family, friends, and co-workers.

Forest Service smokejumper injured on a wildfire in New Mexico

Was parachuting into a fire 9 miles north of the Mexico border

Updated 9 a.m. MDT May 29, 2021

Tim Hart

A Gofundme account has been set up for Tim Hart who was critically injured while parachuting into the Eicks Fire in southeastern New Mexico. He works out of the jumper base at West Yellowstone, Montana.

Below is the text from Gofundme, May 29, 2021:


On May 24th, West Yellowstone Smokejumper Tim Hart suffered multiple injuries after a hard landing during a fire jump in southern New Mexico. Tim was flown via air ambulance to a hospital in El Paso, Texas where he remains in critical condition.

Tim has been a wildland firefighter since 2006.  He began his career working on an engine  for the Coconino National Forest, and continued in that capacity on the  Fremont-Winema NF and the Shoshone NF.  After his engine time, he became a Lead Firefighter and Squadleader on the Asheville Interagency hotshot crew.  He later held squadleader positions on  Augusta IHC  and  Ruby Mountain IHC.  Tim accepted a rookie smokejumper position in  2016 at Grangeville, Idaho.  He moved to the West Yellowstone Smokejumper Base as a squadleader in 2019. Tim’s talents and natural leadership have been a big part in the success of all the functional areas here in West.  He is willing to take things on very thoughtfully and methodically, and with a sense of humor.

Whatever the task is in front of him- whether it’s preparing for fire jumps or cargo drops, building furniture for his new home in Cody, WY or improvising a musical jam session with his wife Michelle, he rises to the challenge!  His “get- it- done” attitude will serve him well on his journey to recovery.

Thank you for supporting Tim and his family during this incredibly difficult time. They have a long road ahead of them, and any burden we may be able to lift would be greatly appreciated.

Keep Tim in your thoughts and prayers…. and keep the whiskey nearby to celebrate all of Tim’s victories down the road.


6:37 p.m. MDT, May 26, 2021

3D Map of Eicks Fire
3D map showing the approximate location of the Eicks Fire, May 25, 2021. Looking North.

This article was first published at FireAviation.com

6:34 p.m. MDT May 26, 2021

A U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper was seriously injured Monday after a hard landing at a wildfire in New Mexico. Tim Hart of Cody, Wyoming was dispatched to help suppress the Eicks Fire in the Animas Mountains of southeastern New Mexico, nine miles north of the Mexico border. He works out of the jumper base at West Yellowstone, Montana.

Mr. Hart was flown by air ambulance to a hospital in El Paso and was in critical condition. “The Forest Service’s first priority is to provide for him and his family right now,” said Marna Daley, Forest Service spokeswoman. “We are working with the smokejumper and firefighter community to make sure those needs are being met.”

Map of Eicks Fire
Map showing the location of the Eicks Fire.

The Eicks Fire has burned 850 acres of grass and brush since it was reported May 24, 2021 in very rugged terrain along the Continental Divide. No structures have burned and none are threatened.

Some media outlets initially reported that the injured person was a Hotshot firefighter, but in a Congressional hearing on Tuesday Chief of the Forest Service Vicki Christiansen said it was a smokejumper.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Tom.

A new movie about Smokejumpers opens Friday

“Those who wish me dead”

Those who wish me dead movie
Still image from the trailer of Those who wish me dead, starring Angelina Jolie.

Wildland firefighters might be pleased, disturbed, or distressed to learn that another movie about their profession is opening this week.

Those Who Wish Me Dead starring Angelina Jolie will be available on HBO Max Friday May 14.

Here is how it is described:

Angelina Jolie stars in this suspenseful thriller as Hannah, a smoke jumper reeling from the loss of three lives she failed to save from a fire, who comes across a traumatized 12‐year‐old boy with nowhere else to turn.

Those Who Wish Me Dead stars Angelina Jolie, Nicholas Hoult, Tyler Perry, Aidan Gillen, Medina Senghore, Finn Little, Jake Weber, and Jon Bernthal.

In the trailer Ms. Jolie is seen at a lookout tower and later is being chased by bad guys with semiautomatic rifles.

The still shot taken from the trailer, above, shows Ms. Jolie holding what appears to be an ice axe, a tool not commonly used on fire crews. Perhaps there’s a really good reason she ends up with that particular tool. We’ll just have to wait and see….. IF we have a subscription to HBO Max.

Those who wish me dead movie
Still image from the trailer of Those Who Wish Me Dead. Angelina Jolie.

I have to admit, if I was casting a movie about smokejumpers, Ms. Jolie would not be at the top of my list.

Few movies have been built around wildland firefighters. There was Red Skies of Montana that in 1952 introduced the myth of exploding trees, and Firestorm brought us Howie Long in 1998. Always, of 1999, was a good movie, but it was not really about wildland fire even though air tankers played a role. Many firefighters thought Only the Brave from 2017 was one of the best of the genre, perhaps because, in part, the producers hired hotshots as technical advisors.

(UPDATE, May 14, 2021: Wildfire Today’s review of Those Who Wish Me Dead)

Opinion: A USFS firefighter in Oregon can be paid more at McDonald’s

A view from under a smokejumper canopy

Boise BLM smokejumpers
Boise BLM smokejumpers. BLM photo by Carrie Bilbao July 28, 2020.

(This article first appeared at The Oregonian)

By Ben Elkind

I would almost do it for free. The feeling of complete focus and calm after jumping out of the airplane is hard to find elsewhere these days. But the chaos from life and the fire below are making me rethink my career, and that’s a big problem for Oregonians.

I’ve been a smokejumper for the US Forest Service for eight years and worked on the Mt. Hood Hotshot Fire Crew before that. I grew up in Oregon and can’t stand to see the wildfires ravaging our public lands and communities, while the smoke threatens our public health.

The Forest Service employs the largest firefighting force in the west, yet the agency refuses to rise to the challenge of climate change and the growing demand that increased fires, short-staffing and low pay presents for our workforce.

Vacancies throughout the west limit our firefighting ability. Fire engines sit idle and unstaffed in many parts of our state, and the number of “Type-II” incident management teams – charged with managing large fires around the northwest – has decreased from ten to seven since 2014. The teams that remain are short-staffed and spread thin. This is the obvious outcome in a profession that I’ve never heard anyone recommend to their children.

As the cost of living and home prices rise in the west, the Forest Service can no longer retain its employees when starting pay is $13.45 an hour. At the Lincoln City McDonald’s, just west of Otis, another community nearly erased from the map by wildfires, a sign in the window advertised starting pay is $15 an hour. My wife joked that I should apply there for more job security. She’s right. A career with McDonald’s is currently more promising than federal wildland firefighting.

I’m an incident commander with advanced qualifications, supervising dozens of resources and fire crews on fires, yet I’ve never earned more than $20 an hour in my 14 years as a professional wildland firefighter. I make decisions that can cost millions of dollars with lives hanging in the balance, yet I am paid more like a teenager working a summer job than a highly experienced professional. Last summer, I trained someone from Seattle Fire who earned more in two weeks than I earned in a 6-month fire season.

The cost of paying living wages to our firefighters pales by comparison with the costs that devastating wildfires have on our state. The costs in Oregon from the 2020 fires alone are in the billions of dollars, and that doesn’t include the mental toll it took on our citizens. My pregnant wife was home with our toddler duct-taping paper towels on a fan to try to filter the smoke, while I was working on the fire that would burn from Warm Springs past Detroit and toward Portland.

I’ve personally seen the experience level drop rapidly on fires over the past decade as people find work that is more predictable and safer, and affords them a better work/life balance. This leads to higher fire costs simply because we aren’t as experienced at fighting fire as we used to be. When training costs are so high, retention is paramount to fiscal responsibility.

Prescribed burns and hazardous fuels reduction are buzzwords politicians and media use, but the reality is that there aren’t people willing to take on that dangerous job anymore at $13.45 an hour. The limiting factor is staffing.

Fire season in 2021 is now underway in the drought-stricken western U.S., yet there have been no policy changes at the firefighting level, or legislatively.

Talking about wildfires, climate change, prescribed burning is great. But our citizens and firefighting workforce demand action. I ask for your help, to demand a better investment of our money, and to preserve what parts of Oregon we have left for future generations.

Smokejumpers
Smokejumpers. BLM photo.

Ben Elkind is a smokejumper for the U.S. Forest Service based out of Redmond.

UPDATED — Smokejumpers replace priests as mascot of Missoula school

Poll: help them choose a new “Smokejumpers” logo for their school

(Updated January 29, 2020)

The students at Desmet School in Missoula, MT have made their decision about which proposed logo will identify them as the Smokejumpers. Since 1890 the mascot of DeSmet Public School in Missoula, Montana had been Padres — Catholic priests. The school is not affiliated with a religion and not all genders could identify with priests who are all male, so they felt they needed a change, and selected smokejumpers as their new mascot.

There were four logos the students could choose from (see the images below), and on January 28 they made a split decision, using variations of two designs.

For informal use, such as on shirts, there will be two versions of number four. Principal Matt Driessen said Friday the design will be modified by the artist to make it “less cartoonish” and there will be one version with a male smokejumper and another showing a female smokejumper.

For more formal use, such as on stationary, signs, and on the floor or wall of the new gym, number two will be used.

As you can see in our poll below in which 844 participated, number two came in first with 35 percent, and number four was third with 21 percent. The ages of the students, grades K-8, may have led them to gravitate toward number 4.


(Originally published January 22, 2021)

DeSmet Smokejumpers Logo Options
DeSmet Smokejumpers Logo Options

Since 1890 the mascot of DeSmet Public School in Missoula, Montana has been Padres — Catholic priests. As the facility is undergoing a major $6 million renovation it seemed like a good time to reevaluate their mascot. DeSmet is not affiliated with any religion, and since all priests are male, some females at the school could not relate to it.

The Missoula Smokejumper Base is virtually across the street from the school. Principal Matt Driessen said their students can see their planes take off from the airport on training flights and watch the smokejumpers parachute from the aircraft and land on the ground. He said the jumpers then run back to the base as part of their training.

Smokejumpers made the list of 100 possible mascots that the administration submitted to the students. And, that’s what they selected. They are about to become the DeSmet Smokejumpers.

But they need a new logo, and that’s where our Wildfire Today readers come in. They have the four possibilities above.

Principal Driessen said number four is a pencil draft, and if it is selected by the students a graphic artist will make a polished version in the same quality as the other three.

Vote for the image you prefer in the poll below, clicking on one of the numbers that represents the image above that you prefer. The poll closes Wednesday night, January 27, 2020, since the students will make their choice the next day. Keep in mind it will be seen on uniforms, and probably on the floor of the new gym being built.

The poll has closed

Choose new logo for DeSmet School

  • 2 (35%, 297 Votes)
  • 1 (29%, 247 Votes)
  • 4 (21%, 180 Votes)
  • 3 (14%, 120 Votes)

Total Voters: 844

Loading ... Loading ...

The decision of which image to choose is up to the students, of course. But we can weigh in, using the poll. Principle Driessen is fine with us helping them make their decisions.

He also said a new mascot is going to require new uniforms.

“Once chosen, the school will need to purchase new uniforms for the teams,” said Principle Driessen. “We are a small K-8 elementary school with a population of about 110 students.  If you would like to donate to the cause, we are always pleased and thankful for donations.”

You can send donations to:
DeSmet Elementary
New Uniforms
6355 Padre Lane
Missoula, MT 59808

Below is an excerpt from an article at the Missoulian:

Driessen said the kids saw the smokejumpers as the best of the best — tough, fierce and skilled. They’re heroic, smart and the elite of the wildland firefighters. They are everything the kids want to aspire toward.

“When I got the call from the school it was really humbling and flattering that they chose us as a mascot,” said Dan Cottrell, the training foreman at the Missoula Smokejumper Base. “We were proud and we were excited and just really thrilled that they, you know, thought of us and gave us that opportunity.”

After the students make their selection, we will update this article. Watch this space.

DeSmet Padres
DeSmet Public School. Google photo. August, 2019.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Dick.

1961 Higgins Ridge Fire — 20 smokejumpers were rescued by a tiny helicopter

Twelve years after the Mann Gulch Fire disaster

Bell 47 helicopter Forest Service
Bell 47 helicopter. Forest Service photo.

(This article was first published at FireAviation.com)

Twelve years after 13 smokejumpers were killed on the Mann Gulch Fire 13 miles north-northwest of Helena, Montana, 20 jumpers were entrapped on a fire in northern Idaho 83 miles southwest of Missoula, Montana.

It happened August 4, 1961 on the Higgins Ridge Fire in the Nez Perce National Forest after an eight-man crew from Grangeville, Idaho had jumped in the area, followed by 12 men from the Missoula jumper base, the last arriving at 1 p.m. The fire behavior on the two-acre fire was fairly benign until a passing cold front brought a sudden increase in the wind at 4:15 p.m. which resulted in the fire spreading rapidly. The 20 men took refuge in a previously burned area. As the wind increased to 50 mph the supervisors of the two squads, Dave Perry and Fred “Fritz” Wolfrum, instructed the firefighters to remain calm and to clear an area for themselves in the ashes.

Lightning was bursting from the pyrocumulus cloud over the fire as the men in their newly issued orange fire shirts covered their heads with their arms when the fire burned around them. They helped each other swat out the flames on their clothes during the ember shower.

They did not hear it because of the roar of the fire, but they looked up and saw the red skids of a helicopter. It was a Bell 47B-3 that had seating for three people abreast, with the pilot in the middle.

Below is an excerpt from the April, 1994 edition of “The Static Line” published by the National Smokejumper Association:

…The pilot was Rod Snider of the Johnson Flying Service and he had spotted the men and their orange [fire shirts].

Fritz and Snider quickly organized an evacuation plan. Snider had to drop down vertically and take off the same way because of old snags surrounding the jumpers [a maneuver that requires more power than departing from a ridge]. On the first few trips Rod took out two jumpers on each run, having them ride in the cabin. Then, with the helicopter getting hotter, Rod told them he would take four out on each trip. Two rode in the cabin and two hung on to the [cargo trays]. Rod was able to ferry all 20 jumpers to the Freeman Ridge fire camp. Fritz and Tom were among those on the last trip out.

Some of the jumpers were treated at St. Patricks’s Hospital for smoke-burned eyes. Within several days most of the jumpers who had been on the Higgins Ridge Fire were out jumping on more fires.

Rod Snider and James Van Vleck Nat Museum FS History
L to R: Helicopter pilot Rod Snider with James Van Vleck. Photo by the National Museum of Forest Service History, June, 2019.

In June, 2019 a reunion was held in Missoula for the firefighters that were involved in the Higgins Ridge Fire. Eleven of the jumpers gave oral interviews and participated in a panel discussion at the National Museum of Forest Service History (video of the panel). Mr. Snider made the trip and gave his oral history, but unfortunately had to return home the night before the panel discussion due to a family emergency.

Below are excerpts from an article in The Missoulian, August 2, 2019:

“It was hard to find them,” said Snider, 89, a quiet man who received awards for his heroism but shuns the obvious mantle of hero.

“The wind was really cooking in there and you couldn’t see the heliport all the time to get down. I had to come in high and drop down into it when I could see a little break,” Snider said in an oral history interview before he left town.

What made you risk your life to do it? an interviewer in Missoula asked.

“Oh, it had to be done. It had to be done,” Snider replied. “I don’t know. You just can’t leave guys down in the position that they were in.”

His helicopter, a Bell 47G-3 that Snider christened “Red Legs” for its painted landing skids and support legs, was one of the first with a supercharger. But the overload was nonetheless hard on it, he said.

“I felt a little uneasy, because I knew I’d over-boosted everything, But when they gave an inspection later on they couldn’t find anything wrong with it,” Snider said.

The following year Snider received the Pilot of the Year Award from the Helicopter Association of America in Dallas and the Carnegie Medal for Heroism.

In 1976, the nation’s bicentennial year, Tom Kovalicky, 84, of Grangeville and Stanley, Idaho, successfully nominated Snider for the North American Forest Fire Medal, which was being revived for the first time since 1956. Snider and his wife were flown to New Orleans for the presentation that October. And in 2002 he was inducted into the Museum of Mountain Flying Hall of Fame.

An article about the fire dated February 21, 2003 at the National Smokejumper Association’s website was written by a firefighter who was on the Higgins Ridge Fire a year before he became a smokejumper.

Higgins Ridge Fire
by Gary Shaw

The year was 1961 when cumulus clouds built up every afternoon promising rain, but delivering isolated dry lightning storms. This was the year before I became a smokejumper. It was my second year to work on the Moose Creek District of the Nezperce National Forest. The preceding summer I had spent as a lookout fireman on top of Bailey Mountain. This year I had been working trail crew for a couple of months until the sky erupted at the end of July and left fires all over the district.

My trail partner (Ron) and I had been cutting a trail from the Selway River to Big Rock Mountain and were currently holed up in a cabin there when a helicopter picked us up to transport us to a small fire on Higgins Ridge. We were to meet a crew walking in from Elbow Bend on East Moose Creek. We saw smokejumpers parachute into the fire area on our way to the fire. We landed on the uphill side of the fire, grabbed our shovels and pulaskis and started for the fire. We could see the jumpers’ orange shirts through the smoke.

Before we could get to the fire a large cumulous cloud covered the sun and the wind picked up to 25 or 30 m.p.h. The fire blew up in our faces, and we were forced to retreat back into a large rockslide.

The jumpers weren’t so lucky. They were trapped in the middle of it with no escape route. They dug in, buried their faces in wet bandanas in the dirt, and tried to find air to breath as the fire roared from a manageable 2 acres to a 1280 acre holocaust. It was late evening, and the fire was beautiful to watch. It was crowning, and trees several hundred feet ahead of the fire would begin to tremble and then burst into flame like a fireworks display.

The fire was so hot that canteens of water near the jumpers started exploding. When things looked at their bleakest, the cavalry arrived in the form of Rod Snider(NCSB-51) in a Bell 47G-3B helicopter from Johnson’s Flying Service in Missoula. It was getting dark when he flew into the middle of the fire and started bringing Jumpers out four at a time, which is two more than the maximum the copter was supposed to carry. He had two guys on the seat and two more on the runners. He made five trips into the fire and rescued twenty jumpers. The manifold pressure on the copter engine was 200% above maximum, and when the engine was torn down later, two pistons fell apart. I heard that “Crash” received 20 cases of beer the next week.

My trail partner and I stayed on the fire through mop-up. The other crew arrived without tools, which were to be dropped in by air. Unfortunately, communications left something to be desired. We kept requesting tools and instead received three separate drops of sleeping bags. Each person had a half dozen sleeping bags, but Ron and I were the only ones who had a shovel and pulaski to work on the fire. So we did.

When the tools finally arrived and we got the fire under control, I walked down to the area where the jumpers had been trapped. I found exploded water cans, unexploded gasoline cans (go figure), and a personal gear bag with all their cameras melted together. I could see Minolta, Canon, and Nikon logos on the fused metal and glass. I sent the lot back to Missoula. The fire had been so hot that there were no snags, just pointed stumps and ashes over a foot deep.

I remember two of the rescued jumpers departed the chopper and immediately asked for a cigarette. Now that’s a habit!

I’ve always wondered what that fire looked like from the other side. If anyone reads this that remembers, let me know.

The group that organized the oral history and panel about the Higgins Ridge Fire was organized by the National Museum of Forest Service History. Wildfire Today first wrote about the museum in 2009 five years after they began their effort to raise $10.6 million to build a national museum to commemorate the 100+ year history of the U. S. Forest Service. Their vision began in 1994 when they obtained 36 acres west of the Missoula airport where they hope to build a 30,000 square-foot building.

National Museum of Forest Service History
An architect’s concept of the future National Museum of Forest Service History.

The museum’s fund drive received a significant boost this month when it received a $2 million contribution from the estate of Bill Cannon, a Forest Service retiree.

From the Ravalli Republic:

…Cannon spent most of his Forest Service years in California and Oregon, with an interlude in Hawaii where he was assigned to state and private forestry work. He finished his career in Washington, D.C., where he worked on program planning for the Forest Service’s state and private programs.

Meanwhile, according to a press release announcing his gift, he used his avocation of studying financial markets to become an adept investor.

Cannon became impressed with the National Museum of Forest Service History on a field trip to the site while in Missoula for the 2000 U.S. Forest Service retiree reunion.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Kelly. Typos or errors, report them HERE.