Dodge headed up the south slope to meet Harrison, the fire guard, near the fire. A former smokejumper from Missoula whose mother had convinced him to give up such a dangerous occupation that summer, Harrison had hiked over the south ridge from his post at Meriwether guard station.

Dodge put squad leader Hellman in charge of the crew “to pick up some subsistence and water before starting down the canyon.”

“Climbing 100 yards or so up the slope the fire was on, we met Dodge and the smoke chaser (Harrison) coming down,” Sallee said in his sworn statement in 1951. “I heard Dodge say something to the effect that we had better get out of that thick reproduction because that was a death trap, and he instructed Hellman to take the crew back across the north side of Mann Gulch and head down the gulch to the river.”

Said Dodge: “Harrison and I returned to our camp area (in Mann Gulch), from where I could see the fire had started to boil up, and I figured it was necessary to rejoin my crew and try to get out of the canyon as soon as possible.”

He figured it was around 5:40 p.m. when he and Harrison caught up with the rest of the men. Harrison and most of the others were dead by 6 p.m. or shortly after.

But first: