![]() ![]() Smokejumpers have to be more or less self-sufficient. "This is when you hope you have a fast climber," one of the firefighters says. Michael Stacky, a second-year smokejumper, dons the gear and scales the tree. So the smokejumpers radio for climbing kits, which also get dropped from the plane-actually, they land more like a missile, and we all have to clear the field and pause the exercise when they're on the way down. From an open side door, a crew member drops a medical kit, but it gets caught high in a tree. The plane that carried the jumpers circles around and approaches the clearing again. They are campers, first aid experts, and engineers. Smokejumpers drop with enough food and water for three days. He's running the emergency medical responder course. "All the training is about keeping people alive and well for longer," says Bill Masten, an instructor at Shasta College (and owner of Rusty Bear). It's all about making sure the firefighters will be ready if the same thing happens in the field. As a firefighter checks on Mooney's mock-injured leg, he snaps, "That's not where my pedal pulse is, you knucklehead," referencing the spot on his ankle where they're trained to check for a patient's heartbeat. A shaggy pooch named Rusty Bear trots over, looking like he wants to help. "You're going to make it," comes an encouraging voice. "Give me something for the pain!" he demands. "Did you come in too hard buddy? Where does it hurt?" Half a dozen firefighters cluster around and begin asking him questions. Smokejumpers practice treating a broken leg during a medical training exercise. Wildland firefighters are killed or injured each year fighting the flames, including 19 who lost their lives in an Arizona wildfire in 2013. These weeks before the worst of of this year's fire season-itself expected to be one of the worst seasons on record-are literally a matter of life and death. With temperatures soaring in the summer and years of dried-out fuel littering the landscape, the firefighters are now in the midst of intense preparation. The same challenge is met by all the teams that play a role in the western wildfire-fighting complex, a constellation of local, state, and federal agencies, from the state-run CalFire to the National Park Service to the Bureau of Land Management. "And our warehouse is staying the same size." "Nowadays fires seem to burn so much bigger and so much hotter," Garland says. Fires are increasing in size and intensity, and the season is getting longer. ![]() Persistent drought and decades of fire suppression have crusted the west with dry brush waiting to burn.
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