Wildfire season is upon us again, and with a historic drought across much of the United States, this season could be a particularly intense one. Response teams are preparing for the challenges ahead, including those within metro and rural fire departments, regional, state and national forest crews, and specialized units that can respond nationwide.
Among the most elite and highly trained units are smokejumpers — fast-attack firefighters who are deployed by air, parachuting into remote locations.
History of smokejumping
The first smokejumpers were used on wildland fires in 1940. In the following decades, smokejumpers were known to be some of the toughest, best trained, and daring of all firefighting units. They were also all men.
That changed in 1981 when Deanne Shulman was hired as a smokejumper out of McCall, Idaho. Like her coworkers, she had years of experience in other aspects of wildland firefighting — on an engine crew, on a hand crew and as a hotshot.
She was the only woman working in this position until the following year, when three more women were hired, and in the next year three more. They worked out of nine bases in the Western continental U.S. and Alaska, operated by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
Today, women comprise around 4% of smokejumper ranks.
One jumper’s story
In 1984, Leslie Anderson was hired as the eighth woman to qualify as a smokejumper. Firefighting was a natural choice for her.
“I grew up camping and backpacking,” she said. “I knew I wanted to do something in that environment.” Anderson lived near Mt. Diablo in Northern California and remembered watching it burn and “feeling like I wanted to help.”
Anderson began as a fire lookout while still in college in 1979. She transitioned to seasonal fire crew, helitack crew and hotshot team member before becoming a smokejumper for the 1984 fire season.
At the end of 1982, Anderson had moved to Missoula, Montana, to attend graduate school. “That’s when I met Deanne,” she remembered. “Within the first hour after I’d met her, she had talked me into being a jumper.”
A demanding job
The physical requirements for being a smokejumper are rigorous, including a pack test that requires a candidate to carry a 50-kg pack for three miles in under 90 minutes, as well as minimum numbers of pull-ups, sit-ups and push-ups within a set time frame, and a 1.5-mile run in under 11 minutes.
Once an applicant has been accepted, rookie training is even more demanding.
Smokejumpers typically deploy to incipient fires in remote areas that would take too long initially to reach by ground crews. Upon arrival on site, they use similar strategies as hotshot crews to extinguish fires — using tools to dig trenches and clear combustibles around the fire’s perimeter to isolate the flames from further fuel sources. Once the fire is initially contained, they hike out to the nearest pickup point, although very remote locations might require retrieval by helicopter. These deployments last from several days to up to a week.
Unforgettable experiences
The work is hard but satisfying on several different levels. Anderson has memories of tough line digs and difficult packouts, as well as tricky jumps. But the jumps could also be sublime.
“I remember the silence,” she said. “There’s all this noise in the plane and somebody slaps you and you go out the door and your parachute opens, and then it’s just whisper quiet. You don’t get much chance to look around because you jump from 1,200-1,500 feet and you’re only in the air for around a minute and a half.”
One scene in particular is seared into Anderson’s memory: “We were up near the Bull River in Montana. We jumped, and I looked out and could see my jump partner, and I could see his red and blue parachute. It was against the backdrop of a snow covered peak and blue sky and forest below and a lake, and I thought, is anything more beautiful than that scene I’m looking at right now?”
All eyes on you
Being one of the first women smokejumpers was challenging: “There were always people who were supportive, there were always people who would never be supportive, and then there were a lot of people in the wait-and-see mode,” Anderson noted. “But most of those eventually came around.”
She remembered feeling that, as a woman, she was always being watched “and that weighs on you,” she said. “You feel like you can’t make a mistake, like you’re representing all women.”
A committed career
Anderson jumped for six seasons. During that time, she attained her master’s degree in forestry and fire ecology. Following her sixth season, she and her husband, who was also a smokejumper, joined the Peace Corps and were sent to Costa Rica to work with their fire program. When she returned to the United States, she worked at the USFS regional office and was an assistant fire manager in the Bitterroot National Forest. She finished her career at the USFS Technology and Development Center as a project manager and program leader. She and her husband also raised two sons during that time.
Looking back, Anderson valued the physical challenge and camaraderie of smokejumping and the adventure of the endeavor, but she particularly appreciated being part of a team that was deeply committed to a common goal: “I feel really fortunate to have been there at a time when women were no longer prevented from jumping. Deanne broke through a barrier. I feel very grateful that at that time of my life I was in the right place at the right time.”
Learn more
Learn more about how to become a smokejumper:
