Smoke jumper
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A smoke jumper is a firefighter who is also given parachute training.[1] Smoke jumpers are dropped in remote areas, not accessible by road, to try to stop forest fires while they are small.
Smoke jumpers are lightly equipped, hand tools like axes, rakes, shovels and hoes. They get downwind from a fire and try to rob the advancing fire of fuel.
It can be possible to stop a relatively small forest fire, spreading through the canopies of trees, by cutting down a row of trees in its path, making a gap in the canopy.
If the fire is spreading along the ground, using their hand tools to establish a strip of land with no fuel to burn may stop a small forest fire.
Another technique employed by smoke jumpers is manage a controlled burn in front of the fire, small enough they can extinguish it. After extinguishing their controlled burn they have established an area where the advancing fire has no fuel to burn, and thus stops.
References
- ↑ Timm Huffman. As civilian, reservist 'leads' in fight against forest fires, U.S. Air Force, 2015-09-21. Retrieved on 2023-12-08. “In addition to his normal duties as lead plane, Delmonte is also a certified smoke jumper pilot, flying firefighters into wildland areas where they parachute in to combat forest fires.”