Missoula Smokejumper Center

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Today we visited the Missoula Smokejumper Center here in Missoula which is one of seven smokejumper bases located in the United States.  It is also a training facility for smokejumpers who must already have 5 to 10 years of fire fighting experience before they may apply. 

Picture showing the training center in Missoula

At the Visitor Center we toured the museum which had lots of displays, dioramas, artifacts and photographs relating to the U.S. Forest Service firefighting.  This Center is the largest one in the United States with about 85 smokejumpers.  Russia has thousands of smokejumpers compared to our U.S. number of around 400.   Of that 400 about 40 are women.

Our tour began with a visit to the sewing room, yes the sewing room.  Firefighters make their own garb including backpacks, parachute harnesses and all the other fabric based equipment except the parachutes.  Jumpsuits are made from padded Kevlar, the same material used in bulletproof vests.  Because there are so few Smokejumpers in the U.S, it is not cost effective for a commercial manufacturer to make the garb.

Helmets worn are like the ones used by skiers and snowboarders except the smokejumper helmet has a steel mesh face cage to protect them when they land near brush and trees.  Once on the ground, the smokejumper wears the normal firefighting attire.  Their jump gear and parachute are stowed in fire resistant bags until they are ready to leave the burn area.

Our next stop was to the parachute loading room.  Again smokejumpers pack their own parachutes.  Today they use round parachutes and square ones with the round ones being phased out.  A chute that has been sitting for six months, must be unpacked and packed again.  Parachutes are only allowed to be used for 100 jumps in the U.S. and are then sent to Canada for further use.

Parachutes are hung from this huge ceiling and lowered and inspected after each jump.  Any tears or repairs are then made by the smokejumper before they are once again packed up.

Parachutes hanging from ceiling waiting to be inspected.

Smokejmpers inspecting a parachute

Our visit then was to the locker room where jumpers suit up when called to a fire.  It takes each jumper 2 minutes to suit up with another firefighter (not on call) standing by to assist and check that everything is fastened properly.  Smokejumpers carry 85 – 100 lbs. of equipment.  From the time the alarm rings until take off in the plane is 10 minutes.  Pretty impressive.  All other cargo (food, water, equipment, etc.) needed by the smokejumpers at the site are already loaded on the plane so no time is lost at alarm time.  This cargo is then dropped to the jumpers once they have landed.  

A Smokejumper ready to leave for the plane

A Smokejumper ready to begin work
Note the foil tent on the right that is used if
a jumper must protect his/herself from fire.
We were told this seldom happens.

Cargo boxes dropped down

Packed food included in cargo boxes

A plane carries between 8 and 10 jumpers (depending on the size of the plane), two spotters and two pilots.

During down time, smokejumpers are packing cargo boxes for fires, equipment, sewing new equipment, checking parachutes and maintaining equipment. 

On our return to the Visitor Center we passed this memorial to lost firefighters.

 A very interesting and informative tour.  Do you recognize this Smokejumper?