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English > Historical Fires > 1949 - Mann Gulch Fire
The Beginning
On August 4, 1949, a lightning storm passed over the Helena National Forest, near Helena, Montana. The fire danger rating at the time was an astounding 74 out of 100, which is described by the Forest Service as "explosive potential." Almost immediately, three small fires started near an area known as Mann Gulch, and were spotted at noon on August 5.
Smokejumping was becoming an increasingly popular aspect of firefighting, as a way to transport firefighters quickly to remote areas. The Forest Service decided to send in a team of smokejumpers to head off the fire.
Not Routine Any More
The routine jump started off with a slight hitch: the smokejumpers jumped from the plane at the normal jump altitude of 1,200 feet (364 meters) above ground, but the pilot suddenly experienced extreme turbulence which forced him to gain altitude, and drop the rest of the supplies at 2,000 feet (600 m) above ground. The jumpers made it safely to the ground at about 4:00, but perhaps as a bad omen, the parachute didn't open on the two-way radio, which was the only form of communication that the group had with the outside world.
The fire was only 60 acres in size at the time, and at that point was far away, and so the men had decided to eat before they would move in on the fire. After walking down Mann Gulch for a couple of minutes, the foreman noticed that the fire had, for some unexplainable reason, crossed the gulch. He immediately directed them to move back up Mann Gulch, as he knew that they needed to keep their distance from the fire.
The Wind
The wind started to pick up, which is not a good sign when a fire is nearby. When the fire crossed the gulch, and forced them to move back up the gulch, it cut off their exit to the river, and they were basically trapped in the gulch, unless they could make it up the sides of the gulch.
Only moments later, the fire decided to get serious. The foreman told everyone to drop their gear, and get out of there, as the flames were reaching heights of approximately 50 feet in the air, and moving quickly in their direction.
The foreman knew that outrunning the fire was skirting death, especially because the sides of the gulch were near impossible to run on, especially with waist-high grass covering the ground. The crew was starting to become a little edgy, and was very surprised when the foreman decided to light a fire in front of them. This is actually a very good tactic, using the theory that if the area is already burnt, then the fire can't move through it. The crew by that time, though, was becoming very scared, and they all tried to run for the top of the gulch, trying to escape the fire.
The Survivors and the Results
Only five people made it out (the foreman being one, because he stayed in the area that he had burnt). Some were scarcely alive, and two actually died in the hospital later that morning. Thirteen people perished, in a fire event that would again reshape the Forest Service's ideas and policy. The Forest Service then set up a policy of protecting human lives before stopping the fire, and added more training and information to smokejumpers, to help them protect their lives better.
Unfortunately, the Mann Gulch fire wasn't given a lot of publicity when it happened, and in fact, nobody really knew exactly what happened until the Intermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory, in Missoula, Montana, did a simulation of it 38 years after the tragic event. This occurred because of a request from Norman Mclean, a writer, to clarify exactly what happened so he could write a story about it. The Forest Service is still not quite sure how the fire jumped to the mouth of the canyon.
In Memoriam:
|> Robert J. Bennett
|> Eldon E. Diettert
|> James O. Harrison
|> William J. Hellman
|> Philip R. McVey
|> David R. Navon
|> Leonard L. Piper
|> Stanley J. Reba
|> Marvin L. Sherman
|> Joseph B. Sylvia
|> Henry J. Thol, Jr.
|> Newton R. Thompson
|> Silas R. Thompson
© ThinkQuest Team C0119184 :: Credits & Sources
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