Smokejumpers: 75 years of airborne firefighters
On July 12, 1940, Rufus Robinson and Earl Cooley — fresh from their 12-day training in Seeley Lake — became the first firefighters to descend by parachute to a wildfire, marking the beginning of the U.S. Forest Service’s smokejumping program.
Seventy-five years later, the National Association of Smokejumpers is inviting current and former members of the famed program to attend the 75th anniversary in Missoula this weekend.
Smokejumpers have parachuted to an estimated 5,000 Montana wildfires since the program’s inception. During the 1940 wildfire season, the two maiden crews based in Moose Creek, Idaho, and Winthrop, Washington, extinguished nine wildfires and saved an estimated $30,000 with their early suppression work — more than three times the cost of the project that year.
In 1946, Jack Dunne had just returned home from World War II, where he served on a B-29 Superfortress. Dunne was working as a logger in Libby, and one day one of his coworkers told him about the smokejumping program.
“They wanted us in the worst way, because we did have the background,” said Dunne, 89, who now lives in Whitefish. He said that the parachuting training he received for smokejumping was far more rigorous than the military’s.
“In the Air Force, we had parachutes and the instructor said you pull this little thing here on the side and you jump out. That was the only training and we were all scared to death,” he said.
“Down in Missoula, the guy that set it up and all the people that worked with him were all parachute people, and the training we got, you wouldn’t believe. The Air Force, they just didn’t expect you to jump out of an airplane.”
Overall, he said he made about 30 jumps in his career and said he enjoyed the experience, eventually leaving the Forest Service to become a teacher.
“I was with them four years, then I got married and had to grow up,” he said with a chuckle.
Dunne plans to head to Missoula on Friday where he will meet up with his son-in-law, Jack Babom, also a former smokejumper.
The event will begin Friday afternoon with a silent auction beginning at 1 p.m., followed by happy hour, a barbecue, music and an award ceremony. Saturday will include a golf tournament, base tours, demonstration jumps and a banquet with remarks by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., among other dignitaries.
Sunday will be reserved to honor and memorialize fallen heroes from the smokejumper community. More than 400 smokejumpers will be recognized as having died since the last national gathering.
The Flathead Valley has provided no shortage of smokejumpers, including William Covey, Albert King, George Ostrom, David Owen, James Oleson, James Scalf, Rod McIver, Gerald Stolte, Richard Cunningham, Lorin Hicks, Anthony Willits, Glen Anacker, Manny Mendoza and Chuck Corrigan.
To register for the event or find more information, including a schedule of events, visit smj2015reunion.wordpress.com.
Reporter Samuel Wilson may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.