[The Smokejumper’s plane sits on the tarmac]
[Wildfire smoke]
Daniel Hottle (interview): “When we’re talking about addressing wildfire crisis and fuels reduction work and things like that, it takes a village is 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.”
[Smokejumpers inside their plane]
[A Smokejumper parachuting out of a plane into a wildfire]
[A highway sign showing directions to the Smokejumpers base]
Madison Whittemore (interview): “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.”
[Smokejumpers helping each other into their suits]
[Smokejumpers walking out to the tarmac]
[Smokejumpers checking each other’s gear]
[The sherpa plane]
[Smokejumpers boarding a plane]
[Cargo being dropped from the plane]
[Smokejumpers executing a practice landing]
[Smokejumpers walking near a river]
Steven Gerard (interview): “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 if the fire stays at the same footprint that it is, potentially we can walk that ridge out to a road that maybe we saw or there’s a river down at the bottom. Can a jet boat get to us? Is the jump spot feasible to get a helicopter in to pick us up?”
[Smokejumpers parachuting out of plane]
[Parachute packs]
[A Smokejumper folding a chute]
[Parachute packs in rows]
[A tub of bear spray]
Daniel Hottle (interview): “Funding through the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act, those types of funding mechanisms have been instrumental to us to be able to have the resources available to hire staff to have more cross-boundary work with our partners, state agencies, local agencies, all the way down to the homeowner to have that resource to be able to address these catastrophic fires on a much larger landscape scale.”
[A photo wall of the Missoula Smokejumpers]
Madison Whittemore (interview): “Wildland firefighting in general is currently facing a labor shortage as wildfires are getting worse every season. They’re getting bigger and fire seasons are going longer. It’s hard to find enough personnel to staff some of these fires.”
[Smokejumpers hanging parachute]
[A Smokejumper using ruler]
[A Smokejumper at sewing machine]
[A Smokejumper going out of plane]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.