Former smokejumper creates gear business for firefighters

Randall “Ran” Crone used to split his time between Hawaii and Alaska, but life as a smokejumper took him to Missoula where his habit of reinforcing his gear would eventually turn into a business of providing high-quality, firefighter bags. 

Sewing backpacks and duffels on a sawhorse in his Missoula apartment, Crone launched Nargear in the early 2000s. Demand for the bags designed for wildland firefighters and used for those with an action-adventure lifestyle grew, and as the years went on, he started seeing his packs used by fellow firefighters all across the country. Now based in Kalispell, but in many ways, it started during Crone’s time in Alaska.

“I was a rock climber and ice climber; I did all that stuff up in Alaska. Up there, the lifestyle is so different. Like, you always got to make things yourself and improvise your own gear, you know, it’s such a harsh and gnarly environment. They don’t always have things that people in Alaska need,” Crone said.

Living in Valdez, Alaska in the early 1990s, he was looking for a career that would let him give back while also balancing his love of surfing and snowboarding. There were few options in Alaska, but firefighting in the summer was one of them.

“I thought ‘Well, dude, that’s great! I can put out fires in the summer and snowboard in the winter’ ... and then I felt like I really wanted to do it for karma. I think a lot of firefighter-type people like to do stuff that gives back to the community,” Crone said. 

Soon after starting his career in firefighting, he set his sights on becoming a smokejumper, which is a specially trained wildland firefighter who provides an initial attack response on remote wildfire. He was just a young buck angling to get into the group, and they told him he needed a few years as an experienced firefighter before he could join their ranks. 

“So of course, I’d apply every freaking year until they finally got tired of me and picked me up,” Crone said. 

There are nine smokejumper bases in the U.S., and when it came time for Crone to choose, he was given the option of Missoula, among other places. As the birthplace of smokejumping, Missoula intrigued Crone and brought him to his new life in Northwest Montana, while still spending time surfing in Hawaii when possible. 

His career as a firefighter and skills as a sewer also landed him a position as a parachute repairman. This greatly increased his sewing skills, and in 2004, after several years as a smokejumper, he started sewing his own personal gear bags, also known as fireline bags. Smokejumpers dive headfirst into a fire with their personal belongings strapped to their chest, and Crone saw room for improvement. 

“They were boxy and frumpy, so I just wanted it to be more aerodynamic for exiting aircraft. Then once the bag was on the ground, you disconnected your Nargear bag and put it on as a backpack,” Crone said. “There was a whole plethora of things that needed to be improved for the ergonomics of a firefighter on the fire line, working 16 hours a day, 48-hour shifts, so from the comfort to the ergonomics, I just wanted to improve everything.” 

Crone remembers life in the early days of Nargear when he sewed each bag by hand in his apartment on the top floor of The Wilma in Missoula. After some time, he hired local women to help him sew the bags as demand grew. Suddenly, many people in his firefighting circles were asking for a Nargear bag. 

For someone who was making improvements based on his personal preferences, he was surprised when others were interested in his bags. 

“Firefighters are a small community, and they’re like, ‘Oh, man, we want one of Crone’s bags!’ I felt like, ‘is that mercy or whatever?’ you know ... But then it turned out that they really did like it, and it started to move from there,” Crone said. 

Eventually, in the middle of his career as a firefighter and his secondary career as a commercial pilot, Nargear took off. It outgrew the Montana operations and is now manufactured overseas. 

It’s a height Crone never expected from his side business of sewing. It was only a matter of time before firefighting friends told him they saw Nargear everywhere. 

“Just knowing that there’s people on the East and West coast and globally saving lives and natural resources with our products on, it just felt so good to think that people were doing rescue ops and firefighting, just all with our gear. It’s just an honor,” Crone said.

Crone said he’s a creative, passionate person who went into this business by accident, but being able to do what he loves is a marker of personal success. 

“I feel like I’m so lucky because I could always just do what I wanted to do. I just followed my passions and did it, and I was able to make a living from it. So, I feel super successful in that way,” Crone said.

Reporter Taylor Inman may be reached at tinman@dailyinterlake.com.