On August 5, 1949, a fire was spotted at Mann Gulch near Helena, Montana. The U.S. Forest Service dispatched a team of 15 smokejumpers who were met by a fire guard from a nearby campground. When the fire blew up, thirteen firefighters were killed, and three escaped. While the Forest Service studied what happened and revised its training and safety measures, few outside the agency remembered the tragedy. Not until Norman Maclean published a meditation on it, Young Men and Fire, did the event connect with national and cultural interests—and continues thirty years later.

Join fire historian Stephen Pyne and host Jamie Lewis as they explore the fire on its 75th anniversary and how Maclean’s book affected the American fire community.

Stephen Pyne is a fire historian, emeritus professor at Arizona State University, and the author of The Northern Rockies: A Fire Survey and most recently Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico. Jamie has written about the fire for the FHS blog and served as an advisor on a documentary film about it.

If you want to learn about it beforehand, the FHS website has a Mann Gulch page with a summary of what happened and several articles on the incident by Jamie, Stephen, and others, along with other information and photo galleries about the history of smokejumping.

To learn more and register, visit: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_h8yxoUkqTeGy9eaQUw7iUw#/registration