Librarian
Introduction
NWCG Collection of Historical Photographs, Mann Gulch Fire
Fire investigators visit the scene of Dodge's escape fire.
The Mann Gulch Fire started on the afternoon of August 4,1949, when lightning struck in a wild area twenty miles north of Helena, Montana. After the fire was reported the next day, 15 smokejumpers parachuted into the area and joined one Service Fire Guard who had started fire suppression efforts. However, the fire quickly blew up and leapt up into the canopy, cutting off their route to the Missouri River. The foreman, Wagner “Wag” Dodge, instructed his crew to dump their equipment to move faster towards the north ridgeline but realized that they were unlikely to make it to safety in time. Dodge set an escape fire, intended to burn away any flammable material in a small area and leave a safe zone. He entered this safe zone and directed his men to join him, but the other firefighters continued trying to outrun the fire. Two men safely reached a rockslide area beyond the ridge, but the rest were caught by the fire. Eleven died, and two were badly injured. The parachute of the crew's radio had not deployed, meaning that Dodge and one of the other uninjured men had to hike to a nearby Fire Camp to get help. Both injured men died on August 6th. The fire was declared controlled on August 10th. Smokejumper training was modified after the fire to increase focus on crew discipline. The Mann Gulch Fire was also one of the "tragedy fires" reviewed before the establishment of the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders in 1957.
Resources
Young Men and Fire by Call Number: SD421.32.M9 P96 2008ISBN: 0226500616Publication Date: 1992-09-01"On August 5, 1949, a crew of fifteen of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts back together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy. Young Men and Fire won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992." --publisher
A Great Day to Fight Fire by Call Number: SD421.32.M9 M38 2007ISBN: 9780806140346Publication Date: 2009-03-20"Mann Gulch, Montana, 1949. Sixteen men ventured into hell to fight a raging wildfire; only three came out alive. Searing the fire into the nation's consciousness, Norman Maclean chronicled the Mann Gulch tragedy in his award-winning book Young Men and Fire. Still, the silence of the victims' families robbed Maclean's account of an essential personal dimension." --publisher
Fifty years after the fire, Matthews gathers personal accounts from the families of the victims, the sole survivor, and more.
Articles marked IN-PERSON are available at the IFSI Library's physical location, and clicking on the link will take you to the catalog record. Those marked ONLINE can be directly accessed by clicking on the link.
- ONLINE - Fire Management Notes - The Mann Gulch Fire: They Did Not Die in VainThis article focuses on the history of smoke jumping, the 50 year commemoration of the Mann Gulch fire, and the impact of the fire on the profession.
- IN PERSON - Fire Engineering - Creating a Command Culture Based on Trust: Lessons Learned at Mann GulchThis article looks at the Mann Gulch fire from the perspective of how a leader can maintain the trust of their crew.
- National Wildfire Coordinating Group - Mann Gulch (Montana) – August 5, 1949The NWCG puts together short articles in a series entitled "This Day in History" which view various past fires as learning opportunities for modern firefighters.
- National Wildfire Coordinating Group - Staff Ride to the Mann Gulch FireAs part of their Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program, the NWCG provides resources for 'Staff Rides,' or explorations of the sites of historic wildfires. These include useful background reading, and summaries meant to be used as talking points as the team members move throughout the site.
- FireRescue1 - Mann Gulch Fire: The historic blaze that claimed the lives of 13 smokejumpersFireRescue1 hosts an article looking at the history of smoke jumping as centered around Mann Gulch.
- Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center - Mann Gulch Fire Entrapment Fatalities 1949The Lessons Learned Center brings together historical and contemporary sources that can help people better understand what happened at a firefighting fatality incident, and what changed as a result.