U.S. Forest Service U.S. Forest Service parachutist-firefighter, ca. 1944

The Mann Gulch Fire is the Smokejumpers' lone tragedy on the fire-line. Two jumpers have since died while jumping, caught and hanged in the coils of their own jumping ropes. But the fact that the Smokejumpers have suffered no fatality from fire since Mann Gulch suggests they learned some things from it.

Those who knew something about the woods or about nature should soon have perceived an alarming gap between the almost sole purpose, clear but narrow, of the early Smokejumpers and the reality they were sure to confront, reality almost anywhere having inherent in it the principle that little things suddenly and literally can become big as hell, the ordinary can suddenly become monstrous, and the upgulch breeze suddenly can turn to murder. Since this principle comes about as close to being universal as a principle can, you might have thought someone in the early history and training of the Smokejumpers would have realized that something like the Mann Gulch fire would happen before long. But no one seems to have sensed this first principle because of a second principle inherent in the nature of man—namely, that generally a first principle can't be seen until after it has been written up as a tragedy and becomes a second principle.

	USFS U.S. Forest Service parachutist-firefighter, ca. 1944

In their early days, the Smokejumpers were still cautious and were still primarily limited in aim to getting on fires as soon as possible while they were small and could be put out quickly. As we have seen, the crew on the Mann Gulch fire was practically devoid of experience on big fires. For instance, according to the Report of Board of Review, the second-in-command, Hellman, in 1947 had been on four Class A fires (less than one-fourth of an acre), two Class B fires (one-fourth to nine acres), and one Class C fire (ten to ninety-nine acres). In 1948, the year before Mann Gulch, he had been on two Class C fires. The almost total experience each crew member had had as a firefighter was being almost his own boss on almost his own fire where for most practical purposes he was the only one who was in a position to save his own life. One thing for sure, being almost boss of your own body and completely captain of your own soul makes you damn fast and certain of your own decisions.

Not long in coming, though, was the answer to the question, What might well happen to a bunch of early Smokejumpers when they take on a small fire that, for whatever reasons, suddenly becomes big? The answer to the question gets almost inevitable when it's asked in this form:

USFS Mann Gulch two weeks after the fire; dashed line marks smokejumpers' route in their attempt to outrun the fire

What might well happen to a bunch of early Smokejumpers who are dropped on a good-sized fire which looks ordinary when they land but suddenly blows up? The inevitable answer has to be something like the Mann Gulch tragedy. Before long, the thing out there in nature has a way of finding the heel of Achilles.

The Mann Gulch tragedy immediately became a flaming symbol to the Smokejumpers and to firefighters generally, especially those in the Northwest. Fortunately, there are a lot of able woodsmen in the Forest Service who don't wait around for the Forest Service to do something, and it was some of these who said to me not long after the fire, "God damn it, no man of mine is ever going to die that way." Small cracks were soon filled in, especially with technical improvements. For instance, there was widespread concern about breakdowns in the communications systems that had occurred during the fire—the failure of telephone or radio calls to be completed—and much was made of the fact that the crew's radio had been shattered on the jump because its parachute had failed to open. As a result of these and similar failures, immediate and on the whole helpful changes were made, such as a simple requirement that crews must carry a backup radio. But there were deeper and more conscience-stricken improvements. Among the overhead, there was an intense heightening of the realization that at all moments on a fire their primary responsibility is the safety of their crew and that controlling the fire is only secondary. Many Smokejumper foremen have told me that since the Mann Gulch tragedy they don't make a move on a fire without first asking the question, If I go there, where can I escape with my crew if the thing blows up? And if they don't like their own answer, they don't go.

To carry out this commitment, the overhead have to do more than constantly pledge themselves to the safety of their crews. At all moments on a fire they must have a fully operational communications system to furnish them with the best information available on which to base decisions involving the safety of their men—insofar as the moment permits, there must be no failure in direct observation, scouting, or radio and telephone communications.

	Natl. Smokejumper Assn. Practice jump during the 2001 fire season, New Mexico

The training of the crews was also improved in many particulars. For instance, their physical conditioning was stiffened, and their knowledge of fire behavior, especially of large fires, was extended. Also broadened was their schooling in the differences between the behavior of fires burning in the dense forests west of the Continental Divide and the behavior of fires burning in the dry grass and shrubs east of the Divide, where little rain is left in the clouds that have been blown across mountain ranges from the Pacific Ocean.

All these things add up, but the greatest concern was to remove the contradiction between training men to act swiftly, surely, and on their own in the face of danger and, on the other hand, training men to take orders unhesitatingly when working under command. On a big fire there is no time and no tree under whose shade the boss and the crew can sit and have a Platonic dialogue about a blowup. If Socrates had been foreman on the Mann Gulch fire, he and his crew would have been cremated while they were sitting there considering it. Dialogue doesn't work well when the temperature is approaching the lethal 140 degrees.

Natl. Smokejumper Assn. Rookie smokejumpers, Montana, 1999

In this delicate job of picking and training Smokejumpers so they will have almost opposite qualities, it won't do at all to pick men who accept orders without question just because they are reticent or even retarded. They have to be so smart that they know there are times when their lives depend on not asking questions. Picking and training such men is like trying to make Marines out of civilians, but the Smokejumpers have done it, and indeed the example of the Marines has helped them do it. In 1949 many of the jumpers were veterans of World War II, and twelve of those on the Mann Gulch fire had been in military service during the war. The live and the dead have joined together to make the Smokejumpers into a semi-military outfit. If a jumper now disregards the orders of his foreman on a fire, he has just made his last jump, fought his last fire, and started for camp to pick up his last paycheck.

USFS Cross marking site where the body of smokejumper Stanley Reba was found

It is worth repeating that in the nearly forty years since the Mann Gulch tragedy no Smokejumper has died on a fire-line. Some of the changes in safety procedures that helped to establish this proud record are concrete, objective safety measures, such as the addition to training courses of experience in fighting grass fires, especially on steep slopes. But the large underlying changes are more atmospheric, like being constantly aware that one risks one's life in fighting fire for a livelihood and that sometimes saving one's life depends entirely upon taking one's life in one's own hands and that at other times one's life and the lives of others must be put entirely into the hands of one boss—old lessons that throughout time have to be learned and relearned, only to be forgotten again.