Women Smokejumpers: Fighting Fires, Stereotypes

Hillary Mayell
for National Geographic News

August 8, 2003

National Geographic Ultimate Explorer: Women
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"Jumping into a fire is, of course, very appealing. It would be to anybody, right?" That's how Jody Stone explains her career choice. She is one of the elite in the corps of wildfire fighters: a smokejumper.

Smokejumpers are the troubleshooters of wildfire-fighting efforts. There are roughly 370 wildfires currently burning in the United States. Smokejumpers are dispatched to the fires that are too remote, the terrain too rugged, or the heat and flames too intense to reach otherwise.

The work is back-breaking and dangerous and the hours are exhausting. You have to love it to do it, and smokejumpers are nothing if not passionate about their work.

"Discovering fire fighting for me was like discovering the job I had been meant to do but didn't know it existed," said smokejumper Lori Messenger. She'll describe a fire as "cooking pretty good," or "messy" and speak of flaming fronts and walls of fire as matter-of-factly as most of us speak of a harrowing day at the office when the computers went down.

Women in a Man's World

The first smokejumper dropped into a fire in northern Idaho in 1940 as something of an experiment. The elite corps remained a men-only unit until 1981 when Deanne Shulman became the first woman smokejumper.

Breaking into the field was not easy. Shulman faced a great deal of resistance to the idea of a woman smokejumper. In 1979, she washed out of rookie training. Although she passed the extremely rigorous fitness test, at 125 pounds (57 kilograms) she didn't fall within the height and weight requirements of the time (130 to 190 pounds/59 to 86 kilograms and 5 feet 5 inches to 6 feet 3 inches/165 to 191 centimeters). It took a formal Equal Employment Opportunity complaint to open the ranks to women.

Weight requirements today are 120 to 200 pounds (54 to 91 kilograms), although the change was not due to Shulman's challenge.

Rather, the weight range helps firefighters jump safely with standard-issue parachutes, said Edmund Ward, base manager of the Missoula, Montana, smokejumper station. Too heavy, and the rate of descent is so fast that the skydiver lands too hard, risking serious injury. If a firefighter is too light, the heavy winds that can sometimes accompany fires will blow a jumper past the intended landing site.

Women smokejumpers remain a minority. Among the nation's more than 400 smokejumpers, only 27 are female. But today they're considered just one of the "bros," said Ward. There are 73 smokejumpers based in Missoula. About ten are women. Ward isn't sure of the exact count, although he offers to look it up.

"I don't think of them that way [as females]," said Ward. "We don't answer every request. Sometimes it's just not safe. But if the decision to send a team is made, they're all smokejumpers and assignments are made by the jump list. At the beginning of the season we pull names from a hat to determine who's going to be with who. After that, it's just a question of rotation. We don't think 'this fire's too tough' [when making assignments] or anything like that. That's all baloney."

Years ago hearing of fathers, sons, brothers, and uncles fighting a fire together was not unusual. Now, the ground has shifted. Fire fighting can be truly a family affair. "It's been a huge change," said Ward, "and it's great to see."

Lori Messenger and her family are a case in point. She met her brother's girlfriend, smokejumper Casey Rose, in 1992 on a family backpacking trip. "In 2000, my brother and I went through smokejumper rookie training together. The next year my husband went through rookie training. And this year I have a niece fighting fire on a hot shot crew," Messenger said.

Rose has risen through the ranks, and when she jumps out of a plane now, she's in charge of the crew.

Athletes in Firesuits

Fire does not respect gender, and neither do the trainers at rookie training camps. Physical fitness is the key criterion for making it as a smokejumper and can be the difference between life and death out in the middle of a fire. When smokejumpers are dropped into a fire they carry their equipment and enough food and water to remain self-sustaining for two days. The women carry packs weighing the same as those of the men, and the training program is exactly the same for both. Many wannabes of both genders don't make it through the first "Hell week" of rookie training.

"After training, some of the top young guys, who are really super athletes, come out of training saying 'they're [the women] our equals.' I've seen a lot of guys go into training with one attitude and come out with another," said Ward.

Some fires are exceptionally difficult to stop, Ward said. Smokejumpers combat high winds, steep terrain, heavy fuel loads, and drought conditions. But a smokejumper is a smokejumper without regard to gender.

"They're [the women] completely the same," said Ward. "They're tough. One of the bros, part of a big family."