The Man Who Gave Smokejumping Its Name
By Frederick, Ken Frederick, Doug
Walter E. Anderson-one of smokejumping’s lesser known pioneers- was born in 1896 on his family’s homestead in the Cascade Mountains near Easton, WA. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War I and completing a 2-year college course in business administration, he joined the Forest Service. It was the early 1920s and Walt signed on as a Forest Service casual firefighter. In 1924 he launched his formal Forest Service career as fire guard at an isolated guard station in the Washington Cascades.
Walt had grown up on the family farm taking care of stock, hunting, fishing, trapping, and hiking the woods. In the winter, he backcountry skied on his homemade skis (see sidebar). He was strong, “woods’ wise,” and savvy about everything outdoors. This hard worker quickly earned the respect of his Forest Service peers-and supervisors.
In no time, Walt worked his way up to a district ranger post on the Wenatchee National Forest. At 34, after a mere 6 years with the Forest Service, he was named that forest’s fire control officer. In 6 more years, in 1936, Walt became chief of fire control for the Chelan (now Okanogan) National Forest.
Using Parachutes
In the summer of 1939 the Forest Service announced it was relocating its Aerial Fire Control Experimental Project from California up to today’s Pacific Northwest Region. While this special project’s focus had been performing fire control experiments with water and chemical bombs, David Godwin, the Forest Service’s assistant chief for fire control, now wanted a brand new program focus (National Smokejumper Association 2005).
He envisioned using parachutes to deliver firefighters into remote and inaccessible fires.*
Walt Anderson’s Chelan National Forest encompassed miles and miles of rugged, isolated portions of the North Cascade Mountains. For several years, its managers had been tinkering with various techniques for parachuting supplies into firefighters in remote locales. The Chelan National Forest also owned an airport that was surrounded by forest lands known to be diverse in both vegetation and topography.
Because of its location and its already established “aerial- minded” mindset, this forest became the new research site for the Aerial Fire Control Experimental Project (Moody 2003).
Shortly before these aerial firefighting experiments were to begin, however, Lage Wernstedt, the veteran Forest Service official assigned to oversee the project, was incapacitated by a medical condition. The region suddenly needed an experienced fire manager to assume these important duties.
Walt Anderson, chief of fire control for the Chelan National Forest in the early 1940s.
Guess who got the nod for this important supervisory position?
Walt Anderson.
What To Name Them?
Walt was responsible for ensuring that the aerial fire control study would meet three primary objectives:
1. Determine the feasibility of landing “smokechasers” from airplanes by parachute into rough terrain at high altitudes and in timbered areas;
2. Develop and test protective clothing suitable for safe landings in timbered and rocky areas, steep slopes, and other hazardous jumping sites; and
3. Make preliminary investigations into the devices, procedures, and actual application of this new approach to firefighting, including communication, reaching the ground after being lodged in trees, retrieving parachutes, and personnel equipment (Moody 2003).
Among his various duties, Walt helped evaluate the parachutes and other equipment proposed for smokejumping. He also helped determine the final configurations of equipment and procedures to be used in this experimental fire suppression program.
During these pioneering experiments to basically invent a new airborne firefighter, Walt is also credited for coining the term “smokejumper.”
Pioneer smokejumper Francis Lufkin recalled how several of the project’s men were huddled around a campfire waiting for coffee to boil (University of Washington 1974). As they mulled over what to call this new brand of firefighters, Walt spoke up. Because the term “smoke chaser” was used for ground firefighters, he proposed calling these new aerial-delivered firefighters “smokejumpers.”
We all know the rest of that story. Walt’s new word stuck.
Tremendous Utility
Walt Anderson wasn’t the kind of manager who became a one- dimensional desk jockey. No sir.
During the program’s feasibility study-at age 43-he made three parachute jumps himself. According to his son, Hal Anderson, on Walt’s third jump he tried to land on his feet (Anderson 2005). But that landing didn’t quite turn out as he’d hoped. Walt hit the ground-hard. He suffered a concussion for his trouble. But that knock on the head never diminished this man’s vision for the tremendous utility of smokejumping in wildland fire suppression.
Smokejumping Pioneers-The Aerial Fire Control Experimental Project, held in the North Cascades on the Okanogan National Forest (then the Chelan National Forest) beginning in 1939, became the Forest Service’s first concerted trial and testing campaign for using parachutes to deliver firefighters into remote and inaccessible fires. Walt Anderson (fourth from right), the forest’s chief of fire control, was selected to be the project’s supervisor.
Walt and the rest of the original smokejumping program advocates and experimenters succeeded in proving that this new airborne delivery system was a feasible method for rapidly getting firefighters into remote and isolated fires.
The next summer, in 1940, smokejumper programs were started at Winthrop, WA, and Missoula, MT. The first operational fire jump occurred July 12, 1940, on a fire on the Nez Perce National Forest.
Walt Anderson died in 1990 at the age of 94 in Missoula, MT. He fell a little short of his goal to live to the age of 101.
Today, the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management smokejumper programs continue to be effective and heralded wildland firefighting forces. Walt Anderson-firefighter, district ranger, fire manager, and ski jumper-helped to get them off the ground.
Walt was responsible for ensuring that the aerial fire control study would meet three primary objectives.
Ski Jumping Leads to Smokejumping
What would entice a middle-aged, career Forest Service manager to try the relatively little-known practice of parachuting?
After all, parachuting in the United States in 1939 was barely removed from aviation’s precarious barnstorming era. Back in those days, to jump from an airplane was still considered a daredevil, crackpot maneuver. (This, however, was not true in Europe. By the late 1930s, both Germany and Russia’s armies already claimed highly organized paratroop units. According to the Forest Service’s pioneer smokejumper Francis Lufkin, the agency’s Aerial Fire Control Experimental project even used a translated Russian paratrooper manual as a guide.)
But maybe if a guy grew up ski jumping, airplane jumping wouldn’t seem so outlandish?
As a dyed-in-the-wool Swede, Walt Anderson (whose Swedish parents had immigrated to the United States) had practically grown up with skis on his feet. He was an extraordinary ski jumper.
In his 20s, Walt won several ski jumping tournaments. During the 1920s and 1930s, he helped start-and then led-three ski clubs in Washington State. Starting in 1928, this Forest Service employee was the driving force behind the construction of the large ski jump in Leavenworth, WA (where ski jumper Torger Tokle would set a U.S. ski jumping record in 1941).
Perhaps the allure of floating through the air and executing a perfect landing on skis suggested to Walt that parachuting might offer a similar thrill. He certainly had enough grit to give it a try. So, at age 43, during the experimental smokejump program’s feasibility study, Walt made three jumps himself.
Walt most likely applied his innovative thinking abilities to his Aerial Fire Control Experimental Project’s smokejumping experiments. He was known for taking multiday, midwinter backcountry ski trips carrying only a 25-pound pack-he was well-versed in knowing how to get the most use from the most basic set of gear.
Through the 1930s, Walt also tinkered with skiing equipment and wrote newspaper articles on the subject. In addition, he wrote a fire equipment article that appeared in Fire Control Notes (forerunner of Fire Management Today) in 1941 (Anderson 1941).
During these pioneering experiments to basically invent a new airborne firefighter, Walt is the guy credited for coining the term “smokejumper.”
Perhaps the allure of floating through the air and executing a perfect landing on skis suggested to Walt that parachuting might offer a similar thrill. He certainly had enough grit to give it a try.
* In 1934 the Forest Service’s Intermountain Region had studied the idea of dropping firefighters into fires by parachute-even hiring a professional parachutist to do a few demonstration jumps. At that time, however, the agency concluded that this new concept was too risky.
References
Anderson, H. 2005. Personal communication. Son of Walter E. Anderson.
Anderson, W. E. 1941. Simple pickup barrel and pump outfit. Fire Control Notes 05(2):109.
Moody, W. 2003. In press. History of North Cascades Smokejumper Base.
Mountainglow, 2005. Retrieved in November 2005 from the Alpenglow ski mountaineering project Web site:
National Smokejumper Association, 2005. Articles: Aerial patrols and the Winthrop_ experiments. Retrieved from Web site:
Brothers Doug and Ken Frederick are both wildland fire management veterans, following in the footsteps of their great-uncle Walt Anderson-their article’s subject. Ken started his career on the Wenatchee National Forest and worked in a variety of fire jobs before moving into public affairs. He has worked on the Coconino and Flathead National Forests and is currently a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management, National Interagency Fire Center, Boise, ID. Doug also started his Forest Service career on the Wenatchee National Forest, serving on the Entiat Hotshot Crew as well as engine and hand crews. He also worked on the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in fire and fuels. He is currently the assistant fire management officer at the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service’s Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Cheney, WA.
Copyright Superintendent of Documents Summer 2007
(c) 2007 Fire Management Today. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.