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"Jumping
Fire" is slow, grasping and intense reading about one
smokejumper's life. The
hardcover book is 448 pages done in small print and took me a few
weeks to read. After finishing
the book, I felt exhausted, as if I had spent the summer running from
one fire to another too. I also felt a little sad to hear of the
deaths of some of the men mentioned in the epilogue of the book.
Murry does a
great job of making his firefighting brothers, yours also.
I also felt (at
times) that I needed to take a long hot bath. The sweat,
dirt, and grime seems to jump off the pages and onto the reader. At
other times I was lost & confused, especially when it came to the
technical issues of the jumping gear.
I felt the book needed a diagram of a jumper in his suit with the parts
explained better. That's just my own female perspective on it.
Maybe others will get it?
So what kind of a man
becomes a smokejumper?
What does it take?
"According to
tradition, they're not true smokejumpers until they actually jump a
fire." Notice he doesn't say jump INTO a fire? People
often assume they jump into a fire. What smokejumpers really do is
try to jump near a fire, with the blessing of a good wind and Big Ernie
of course. ;)
Surprising as this may be, smokejumpers are not often big, hunkie men
the size of football players. But, physical fitness is a major
part of the job requirement making it a year-round priority for those
that seek this work, in order to pass the rigorous Physical Training
test in the Spring. "Each winter over 200 applications are
received from the best fire crews in the nation. Only 1 out of 25 are
selected for Alaska rookie training. Of these, half wash out.
Former marines who have become smokejumpers all agree that Alaska rookie
training is tougher than anything they saw in boot camp. Rookie
training lasts 3 weeks. Refresher training, by comparison, lasts only
one week."
Big Ernie is their God,
while the Canadian geese seem to be their mascot. The reason isn't too
clear, but many feel it's because of the geese's freedom of flight,
their wildness living and their migratory lifestyle that creates a bond
between them and the smokejumpers. I do not know how Big Ernie got
his name.````
Smokejumper's etiquette
also states that NO ONE touches anyone else's jump gear except in
emergencies. Each is responsible for his own gear. Jumpers now use
rectangular parachutes. But some of the older jumpers had a
problem adjusting to them after using the round chutes for such a long
time.
Injuries
& Drowning
Most smokejumpers have
to quit because of bad knees. Others get injured ankles, backs and
shoulders (or all of the above). One-third get knocked unconscious
at least once in their careers. While some sort of torn ligaments seem
to affect 50% of them also. Others do get seriously hurt on the
job, and surprisingly it isn't the fires that are the most danger to the
men. The first danger is the trees themselves. Falling into a tree
and becoming "skewered" is the biggest fear they face.
So jumping out of the plane isn't their greatest fear as most of us
assume. It's the fear of not
having a good landing. Some jumpers not only have been stuck
in the
trees, others have caught bad winds and landed on the other side of the
river where the fire wasn't (being literally stuck away from the group
for food, etc. for days). One jumper has even landed on a moose! The one
location they do not want to land is in the river (or lake). It's
not that they don't know how to swim, but they carry packs of up to 200
lbs. and well, it's more like sink than swim. "During water-landing
training, jumpers are told that their life expectancy in Alaska
water is 15 minutes." Also, many of the waters are not clean,
clear and sparkling like you see in photos. And during a fire, the
waters can become filled with silt, debris etc. This stuff sticks
to the jumpers clothing and can often drag down the best of swimmers.
Oh, and in some cases the water is also freezing!
Some injuries become
VERY painful until a medical helicopter can come and take them to
treatment. "Until a few years ago, smokejumpers carried Demerol
(synthetic morphine) in all the jump planes. That practice was an
early victim of the war on drugs, and now new regulations disallow
it. Spend one night in the wilderness with a badly injured friend,
watching him suffer and you'll see what a travesty this policy is."
Spotters
& Jumping
I was stunned to learn that the pilots do not have parachutes and often
go down with their planes. Ironically, the smokejumpers are free from
FAA regulations requiring them to fly with seats and seat belts.
So most of them lay on the floor of the plane (seems crowded) waiting
until the spotter decides they should jump. The spotter also doesn't
wear emergency parachutes either. Hmmm? But the safety of the spotter is
the responsibility of all the jumpers. The spotter will get close
to the open door and attach the "pigtail" (not sure what that
is) of his harness to the restraining line inside the plane. This
way if he accidentally falls out, he can get pulled back in.
How a guy gets to be a spotter, I didn't really figure out from reading this book. But he's
the man who analyzes the fire from above and might even have it fly
around more than once until he can figure out where is the best place
for the men to land. Knowing how the wind is (and how the men will
drift) is the key. So the spotter sends out these "drift
streamers" made of crepe paper, that are 20 feet long, 10 inches
wide and weighted to drift the same as a smokejumper under a
canopy. There are 3 drift streamers to a set: Bright Yellow, Red
and Blue. The streamer altitude is 1,500 feet.
They jump in teams of 2
men each. A two-man team is called "stick."
And the first man is the first stick and the second is the second
stick. The "stick" (1 & 2) jumpers go out at
the same time. They keep it two-by-two to help minimize the danger
of mid-air collisions when landing in small areas.
Ever wonder what's
going through their minds as they fall from the sky?
According to the book they say this...
Jump
Thousand...
Look Thousand...
Reach Thousand...
Wait Thousand...
Pull Thousand...
Check Your Canopy!
Check Your Airspace!
Check Your Three Rings!
Check Your Cutaway!
Check Your Reserve Handle!
Grab Your Toggles!
Check Your Steering!
Check Your Airspace AGAIN!
Disconnect Your Stevens!
Start Steering!
(They have to know this by
heart. By the end of the book some of you will too!)
But until you get to
the fire, many smokejumpers try to catch a nap if possible because they
never know when they'll be able to get some rest when they get there.
Tanker Planes &
That Red Stuff! ;)
There is a base for the
smokejumpers to stay until they are called to a fire. There is also a
base for the tanker planes and their pilots to stay also. From
reading the book, both of these "standby" bases are not the
most pristine facilities. However, the tanker planes during a busy
fire season earn tons of money! "During peak periods these planes
will fly fires day and night, earning their owners upward of $15,000 per
day." On the other hand, more tanker pilots have died
fighting fires, than smokejumpers. It's a more dangerous job.
"Since 1958 over a hundred have been killed in the line of duty.
Simply put, they have buried a lot of their friends. They know it.
Smokejumpers will tell you that the tanker pilots are the real heroes of
the wild land fire fighting. "
We've all seen the
tanker planes flying over the fires dumping that red stuff down. I've
often wondered, "So is it landing on the
firefighters or do they leave before the plane drops the
stuff?"
I found the chapter explaining the fire retardant the most interesting
of all. The best way to explain it is to just directly give you some
quote excerpts from the book as Murry explains it.
"The retardant is
contained in individual tanks in the belly of the aircraft. These tanks
are sealed by hydraulic doors, called gates. ... In Alaska, the
fire retardant of choice is Phos-Chek. Phos-Chek is primarily
water, bentonite clay and ammonium phosphate fertilizer mixed with red
colorant. Retardant is dropped from various heights
depending on the restrictiveness of the topography. Falling from
200 ft. it disperses in the air and comes down like a muddy rain. Drop
areas are always cleared of people, since sometimes it comes down in
lumps big enough to be lethal."
So,
does it land on the smokejumpers?
.... "I hugged the
tree tightly as the retardant rained down all around me, smelling salty
and cool like the sea....It is best to get completely clear of the drop
zone. Not only is it messy to get drenched with retardant, it can be
life threatening. A load from a DC-7 weighs more than 27,000 lbs.
The 3,000 gallons of retardant is traveling approximately 130 mph when
released. If the load is dropped too low, trees 8" to
12" in diameter can be ripped out of the ground like
matchsticks. In more open areas, low drops rip out sections of
tundra 10-15 feet wide for a 100 feet, clar down to permafrost, two to
three feet below the surface."
Just when is it
determined that the smokejumpers need help from the tanker pilots?
And when to send in the planes?
Since it's a more
costly way of fire fighting than paying smokejumpers.... "Available
manpower is the key factor when using retardant. If people can't
get into the area right after the drop and take advantage of it, it may
not be worth dropping. Aerial retardant works in 3 major ways to
cool a fire. It knocks the flames down physically. It coats
the fuels -- tree tops, branches, brush, grass --- with a thin layer of
watery, red mud, thus providing a barrier between the fire and
fuel. Lastly, it immediately raises the humidity in the
surrounding area. Higher humidity is the significant factor for maybe
only half an hour, but that is usually enough time to allow us to work
in close to the fire and take advantage of the effect. Many fires
would simply be too dangerous to move in on without the cooling aid of
aerial fire retardant."
So how environmentally
safe is all this red stuff? "The retardant chemicals have no
apparent adverse effects when dropped on land, and we are extremely
careful to keep them out of any natural body of water...... Retardant
pilots, especially the old hands, are good at making tactical decisions
on their own. Some are excellent. Even though they do all
their fire fighting from the cockpit of an airplane, they've developed a
keen sense of what coverage levels will suppress fires of varying
intensities. There's not one that will tell you he isn't still
learning, and it doesn't take long to tell a rookie from a veteran
either."
Personal
Sanitation
I know you're curious
about some of the personal hygiene. Aren't we all? ;)
Well in one chapter Murry describes using his helmet as a sink, filling
it with water to use to wash his face etc. And most of the time
they use the great outdoors as their outhouse. But in this one chapter,
he describes one of the finer ways to deal when Mother Nature calls...
"There's and old
green Willys station wagon that used to sit out in the weeds along the
road. Back then the area had no plumbing, so the jumpers dug a
hole and moved the old wagon over it and put a few boards across where
the seat had been. Nice! Just like that the old Willys had become our
own town and country two-holer, complete with a roll of toilet paper on
the gearshift lever. The preferred hole was the one behind the
wheel. That way, when the locals came driving by, the jumper doing
his business had only to fake and interest in the old station wagons and
no one would know better. Those were the old days. Things are different
now. There is plumbing, even showers."
Bears
Believe it or not,
besides the fear of jumping into a tree (getting stuck or stabbed) the
second greatest danger they face are from the locals of the
area....BEARS!
The smokejumpers come under the Bureau of Land Management, whose
unofficial policy is to not kill a bear unless it's eating you. So
if it's between jumper and bear, most of the time the bear wins.
"We generally give them all the room they want, moving our camps
and keeping out of their way. If that doesn't work, chasing them off
with helicopters usually does."
Smokejumpers call the Grizzly Bear "Ursus Arctos Horribilus or the
horrible one." Ironically, the grizzlies are not their
biggest trouble makers and they have few encounters with them. No,
it's the black bears. These black bears literally make their way
into the camps, eat all their food, rip up tents and do other things I
won't go into. They are usually not intimidated by yelling,
screaming and rock throwing. Sometimes even chain saws don't
intimidate them. Thus trouble is inevitable.
Food They Eat
Food at the base camp
is pretty good, especially Galena, AK as Murry says. He also says
"the cooks are beautiful." But, while fighting fires,
the men are eating all kinds of stuff...K-Rations, food dropped from
supply planes, fish they catch and the items they have packed with
them. Many pack foods high in sugar and carbohydrates. Junk
food seems to be their main course many times. And, in one case Murry
describes shoving some instant coffee granules into his mouth, taking a
chug of water, swishing it around and then swallowing. Talk about
a caffeine boost! But I often wonder if their knees don't give
out, why their stomachs don't (acid reflux, ulcers, etc.) give out first
from the way they eat and drink? They're also munching aspirin
(without water a lot). In one chapter, he packed a potato and an
onion in his jump suit to eat later. I have no idea why. Does the potato
bake while he's near a fire? So he's cooking his dinner while he's
fighting the fire? Or is it to keep it protected from the bears. (See
above)
Occasionally they get a
few days off, get to go into the local town and eat a good meal at a
restaurant or lodge.
Family
and Social Life
He says it's a lonely
life. Most of the time it's sitting and waiting to be called to
that fire. The men spend the days sleeping, cleaning, reading,
writing letters, talking about women and doing what is referred to as
male bonding.
I got the impression
that not everyone really likes everyone's personality, but deep down
they all have a brotherly love for each other because they all love what
they do no matter how much they complain.
Murry
states, "The suicide rate is high among smokejumpers."
And most of the suicides occur in the off-season when they are away from
their fellow jumpers. Hmmm?
Many jumpers are
married. Many rookies and snookies are not. But for those
who start the fire season unattached their seems to be this rule,
"If you don't find yourself a girlfriend by June 1st, you may as
well forget it." Ha!
Murry did. A girl
named Sally. I won't spoil the romance of this book so that's all
I'm going to say.
But in closing I'd like
to say that as a woman I do not agree with the men who seem to feel that
it's the "job as a smokejumper" that is ruining their
relationships with women. They seem to feel that the weeks apart
on a fire mess up their love life. Since there are many men whose
jobs take them away from their loved ones and families for weeks (i.e.
military, CIA, FBI, field engineers etc.) the fact
that Murry is single and the oldest smokejumper to me is not the job's
fault. From reading the book, my view is that loyal husbands found
their wives cheating on them while they were off fighting fires, at the
same time some loyal wives were home while their smoke jumping husbands
were off committing adultery say with a local waitress in a cafe close
to the fire. As I read the book I was thinking, "Well all we
need is for the loyal wives to meet the loyal smokejumper husbands and
all would live happily ever after...in most cases."
It's not the job you pick, it's your partner that will make or break a
relationship.
With this is mind, the
only discomforting fact I find in this book is the continual whining by
the author about his poor social or love life through the years. It is
my own personal opinion that Murry is in love with being in love.
He's as thrilled with fighting the flames of a forest fire as he is with
the flames of passion. And once the "flames of passion"
are kindled to say smoldering embers, well, he gets well..... You
read the book and find out!
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