Passing of an Era

By Chuck Bushey

Wildland firefighting is a unique profession filled with special people who frequently maintain the camaraderie they gain on the fireline for life. For most, it is an exciting summer job for a few years before moving into another profession. For a few individuals, however, wildland fire is their vocation no matter what other hats in life they may eventually wear.

I have had the opportunity to meet and know many in our community, but a special place will always be reserved for one smokejumper. Earl E. Cooley, one of the first smokejumpers for the U.S. Forest Service, died on Nov. 9, 2009, at the age of 98 in Missoula, Mont. When I first met Earl across a kitchen table, I became engrossed in his stories of early Montana, the Forest Service “family” and, especially, fire on the mountains.

Earl was born in 1911 on a hard-scrabble farm in Hardin, Mont. He left school at age 12 to help the family make ends meet, which was not unusual at the time. With his love for hunting and fishing, he wandered west from the plains into the forests of the Bitterroot Valley of the Rocky Mountains. Earl was destined to make a name for himself with the Forest Service in the mountains of Montana and Idaho.

During those years of the Forest Service's “10 a.m. policy,” the goal of fire suppression was to get to the fire rapidly while it was still small. A district ranger's career could be a short one if his cadre of men could not get those fires caught by 10 o'clock the morning after detection. That wasn't an easy job when fires were in remote, rugged terrain that could be reached only by hiking or by pack-string, a process that could take days.

The idea to parachute firefighters for initial attack was developed in 1934 in both the United States and the Soviet Union. Like many novel ideas, not everyone in high places was in favor; they thought it was too risky and that anyone interested was probably crazy. In 1939, the U.S. experiment continued with professional parachutists jumping into mountainous timbered terrain. The first jump bases were established a year later at Winthrop, Wash., and at Nine Mile Camp in Montana, where nearly 100 men with no firefighting experience applied — 16 had actual fire experience. Training lasted 11 days.

The first jump on a forest fire was by Rufus Robinson, followed by Earl Cooley, at Marten Creek on the Nez Perce National Forest on July 12, 1940. Earl's chute nearly failed to open, and he got hung up near the top of a 120-foot-tall spruce. When the four-man fire crew arrived the next day, Earl and Rufus had the fire under control, so they all hiked back out 28 miles to the ranger station. Earl reportedly once told a newspaper reporter that the only bad part of parachuting into a forest fire was the walk home.

This was the beginning of a long Forest Service career for Earl. But like most of us who stay in wildland fire long enough, he lost friends and acquaintances. Earl was the “spotter” for the 12 smokejumpers who were entrapped in the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire. As the years passed, there would be others. He later was a primary source for Norman Maclean's book, Young Men and Fire. Earl became the ranger of his own Forest Service district in Idaho in 1950; he returned to Missoula in 1958 to serve as superintendent of the smokejumper base before retiring from federal service in 1975. I first met him shortly before his autobiography, Trimotor and Trail, was published in 1984.

I understand that Earl's well-worn smokejumper boots were prominent at his final ceremony. I am sure that the international band of firefighters who jump from airplanes, past and present, took the opportunity to note his passing and remember. Earl truly lived wildland fire, and his passing marks the close of an era in the history of us all.

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