–DEVELOPED IN 1911 to fight wildland fires, the Pulaski single-bit ax goes wherever smokejumpers go Photo: Elaine Thompson/AP Photo.

BY THE TIME Marshall Cazaly dropped into the perimeter of a howling wildfire in a remote piece of eastern Nevada, it was 7:00 P.M. and the blaze had already consumed 800 acres. For the next eight hours, Cazaly and seven other smokejumpers worked relentlessly with chain saws, shovels, and Pulaski hand tools to establish a firebreak—strips or blocks of land cleared of trees, brush, and other vegetation that act as fuel for a fire.

But the crew’s frantic activity was for naught, as a scorching desert wind kicked up overnight and shifted directions. By day break, the fire had grown to 10,000 acres and was advancing on two fronts. With no ground-based reinforcements yet able to reach the distant area, Cazaly, his face blackened with ash and soot, was sent on foot seven miles to contain the northern flank of the blaze. Alone.

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For the next 36 hours, humping a pack weighing well over 50 pounds and subsisting on a few MREs, energy bars, and just eight quarts of water dropped in with him, Cazaly stood in the face of the inferno, chainsawing, shoveling, and literally beating back what had become an all-consuming thermal storm. Charging up and down hillsides, he drained virtually all his physical and mental reserves to contain the blaze, all while assessing a variety of shifting atmospheric, weather, and wind conditions in order to devise a strategy for the eventual delivery of aerial retardant.

“I always had one foot in the black,” says Cazaly, 29, referring to the burn line at the edge of the fire. “I lost aviation resources pretty quick. It was three full days, 16-hour shifts, working straight through. On that second shift, I put 19 miles on my GPS.”



—SMOKEJUMPERS PERFORMING ON-GROUND jump solutions at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, where firefighters go for wildland training. Stuart Palley

When reinforcements finally arrived, the fire covered 250,000 acres. But as part of the initial attack—what smokejumpers refer to simply as “IA”—Cazaly and his teammates had prevented a much greater catastrophe. In the process, each torched more calories over just a few days than many of us do in a month at the gym.



“After the third day, I was up at 8:00 A.M., briefed for another fire, and flew to . . . I don’t remember, maybe the Shasta-Trinity area in California,” says Cazaly.

He may not have known exactly where he was headed, but he was confident about one thing—he’d be prepared for whatever needed to be done once he got there.

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AT THE START of every football season, there are 1,696 NFL players. The U. S. Congress has 541 members. Of the nation’s estimated 1.2 million firefighters, only about 400 can call themselves smokejumpers. All firefighters face enormous risk and under-take grueling challenges. But smokejumpers—firefighters who parachute first into wild land fires—are a truly exclusive club. In terms of the superhuman strength, endurance, emotional composure, and mental acuity under extreme stress it requires, there may be no more demanding job in the country.



The nation’s first line of defense against wildfires—crews are usually en route within ten minutes of a fire dispatch—smokejumpers fulfill an increasingly critical role in environmental preservation. As summer temperatures spike and droughts in western states drag on for years, wildfires have become a reliable epidemic. In 2018, California experienced its worst fire year on record, with more than 8,000 fires and 1.8 million acres burned, surpassing the 2017 total of 1.3 million acres over 9,560 fires. California’s seven largest wildfires by acreage have all occurred since 2003. Officials blame climate change and extended heat waves, which dry out grasses and plants, making it easier for fires to ignite and gain momentum.

IN JUST HIS THIRD SEASON as a smokejumper, Florida native Marshall Cazaly has fought blazes across the west. BLM Photo

“Fire season can extend through much of the year, depending on the geographic part of the country,” says Matt Bowers, crew supervisor of the Great Basin Smokejumpers, based at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho. “We still do consider ‘fire season’ to generally be during the summer months in the western U.S. and Alaska.”

In firefighting circles, however, that view is changing. Wild-land fires are becoming a year-round phenomenon. In June, U.S. Forest Service chief Vicki Christiansen warned that a billion acres of land across the country are now considered at risk for destruction by wildfires. “When you look nationwide, there’s not any place that we’re really at a fire season,” Christiansen told NPR. “‘Fire season’ is not an appropriate term anymore.”

On a 55-acre campus within the NIFC, Bowers helps oversee one of the largest smokejumper bases operated by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In Boise, Bowers, Cazaly, and about 75 other smokejumpers train daily and stand ready to be deployed to fires in Colorado, Wyoming, and parts of California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah. At times they’ll be sent as “boosters” to augment teams as far away as Arizona and Alaska.

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So why are they based in Boise? In addition to being more or less centrally located among the West’s most critical fire zones, Idaho’s state capital has a semi-arid climate—the area gets just 12 inches of rain and melted snowfall per year—and a position between the Boise Mountains to the northeast and the Owyhee Range to the south-west that makes it ideal for training. Peaks in these ranges top out at 10,000 feet, but the surrounding valleys of parched, brown range are just as useful. We tend to think of wildfires raging through acres of high-elevation timber. Plenty do. But many fires that smokejumpers fight burn across open grasslands and livestock ranges loaded with tall grasses, sage, and desert scrub.

For the Great Basin Smokejumpers, a typical spot for training jumps is a mostly treeless uplift in the foothills west of Boise, unofficially dubbed Knife Ridge. It’s a segment of what one smokejumper describes as “miles of nameless BLM land out here,” and the level part of the landing zone at the top of the ridge is no more than 30 feet wide. Mule deer, coyotes, marmots, badgers, and the occasional black bear are regular witnesses to descending jumpers.

Most smokejumpers are career firefighters. The average age at the Boise center is 37. One year of fighting wild land fires is required just to apply, but it takes five years of experience to make you competitive for this highly coveted job. Many of those who make it have accumulated years of experience on interagency hotshot crews, what the Forest Service calls “the most highly trained, skilled, and experienced type of hand crews.”

— WITH GEAR AND flame-resistant Kevlar suits, firefighters generally jump with 90 pounds on their bodies. Stuart Palley

Of the 150 or so applicants each year for smokejumper rookie training, six to eight are typically invited to try out. Inevitably, someone already near the top of the profession washes out during the six weeks of physical and mental punishment designed to push recruits to their limits and allow trainers to assess how well the rookies handle stress while also absorbing and retaining reams of technical information. Boise smokejumper Martha Schoppe, 40, had the misfortune of enduring her rookie training in Redding, California, in the spring of 2016.

“The hardest part was performing all of it in triple-digit heat,” she says.

“One rookie dropped out this year,” says Bowers of the most recent Great Basin Smokejumpers class. “He was a hotshot and very good. He pulled himself out. He said he wished he’d prepared better for rookie training. Fitness really carries into that mental capacity.”

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ONE REASON FOR the rigorous training is a 2006 study from the International Association of Firefighters that concluded that more than 50 percent of firefighter deaths are due to health, fitness, or wellness. Various firefighting agencies responded with greater attention to fitness standards. To evaluate new recruits and keep veterans at peak performance levels, smokejumpers use a number of fitness tests and assessment tools.

FROM THEIR BOISE BASE, the Great Basin Smokejumpers operate de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin otter aircraft, which carry eight members plus gear and cargo. Kari Greer

After passing a battery of medical evaluations, smokejumpers rely on two primary measures of physical fitness. The BLM’s required pack test consists of a three-mile hike with a 45-pound pack over level terrain in 45 minutes. Because the boots that wild-land firefighters wear aren’t designed for running, no running or jogging is permitted. Tests are completed at a walking pace with one foot always in contact with the ground.



The recommended four-to six-week training for the pack test is simple: Hike three miles with no weight. When you can cover the course in less than 45 minutes, add a 25-pound pack, eventually working up to a 45-pound pack. Finally, jog three miles with no weight, add the pack, and hike hills to build strength.

“Hiking is always applicable,” says one veteran smokejumper about training methods. “We’re going up and down mountains every day, all day.”

Beyond completing the pack test, rookies must show up able to either hike three miles with a 110-pound pack in 65 minutes or run 1.5 miles in 10:47, as well as do six pullups and 30 pushups in unbroken sequence while maintaining form. Those are also the required benchmarks to keep the job in an annually administered test.

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Though the pack-test and baseline guidelines are rigidly followed, far more emphasis is placed on the BLM Fire Operations Fitness Challenge, which tests participants in pullups, pushups, situps, and a timed run of either 1.5 or three miles. The challenge allows up to three minutes per calisthenic event, with a maximum of five minutes between exercises. A total of 100 points is available in each event, making 400 a perfect score. At the Boise base, score 300 or better and you’re rewarded with eight hours of vacation. Hit 400 and you get your name on a plaque.



All federal arduous-duty workers—officially tasked with “fieldwork requiring physical performance calling for above-average endurance and superior conditioning [demanded by] extraordinarily strenuous activities”—have to score 25 points in each category to keep their jobs. That means seven pullups, 25 pushups, 40 situps, and either 11 minutes in the 1.5-mile run or 25:20in the three-mile run.

But smokejumpers aim much higher. “We shoot for a 200 minimum score, 50 points in each event,” says Bowers.

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THE TRAINING CENTER is one of the most open-minded fitness-testing grounds anywhere in the country. If you talk to smokejumpers about staying in shape—once they pass the standards tests, they are responsible for their own fitness regimen—you’ll get firsthand critiques of every exercise, strength program, and diet you’ve ever heard of and possibly some you haven’t: tire flips, farmer carries, elliptical machines, dragging sleds, power-lifting, calisthenics, sprinting regimens, marathons, hiking, skiing, rock climbing, hunting, fishing, cycling, cold-water therapy, sauna therapy, mindful breathing, yoga, the Wim Hof Method, Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 strength-training method. . . . It’s a group of people dedicated to improving performance and open to giving anything a shot.

“We’ve seen a big change in the last five years in terms of mobility,” says Chris Henry, 43, an extremely fit former hotshot foreman now in his fourth year as a smokejumper. “Our people are really getting into lacrosse balls, foam rollers, stretching, yoga—all the general mobility stuff.”

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Makes sense. When you’re lifting, twisting, and hiking with 100-plus pounds of gear strapped to your body, fighting a fire on a steep hillside miles from the nearest medical facility, you can’t afford to torque your back, neck, or shoulder.

Most smokejumpers played high school and even college sports, but there’s no body type singularly suited to the job. At six-foot-five and 230 pounds, Cazaly still looks like the intimidating basketball power forward he was in high school. The wiry Schoppe is a fervent ultra marathoner.

"THIS PROFESSION ATTRACTS hunters," says Bowers. "Pretty much every base has antlers and trophies hanging up." Stuart Palley

As long as you can jump from an airplane in a Kevlar suit with 90 pounds of gear attached to you, work for months in the face of massive superheated blazes, pack out 135 pounds at the end of a job, and then get up and do it again, you might have what it takes to be a smokejumper.

“Anybody can hoof a pack uphill for a few hours and call it a day,” says a smokejumper during one of several weekly training jumps in the spring. “You have to be able to do this all day long, 16-hour shifts. Then again the next day. And the next.”

The best, or at least most prolific, smokejumper is a living legend within the community named Wally Wasser. Over a 33-year career, Wasser made a record 834 jumps as a smokejumper, with 395 of those to fires. He retired in Boise in 2011 at 57, the mandatory retirement age for smokejumpers at the time.

At 48, with 25 years as a smokejumper and 490 jumps (including 147 jumps to fires) on his résumé, Bowers is currently a senior figure among Idaho’s Great Basin Smokejumpers. Like all smokejumpers, he downplays the exalted status of the job.

“Once we’re on the ground, our job is the same as the hot shots’ or any other firefighters’,” he says.

That’s a typical deflection of acclaim. But with record-breaking fire seasons seeming to come annually, the need, status, and physical demands of one of the world’s most challenging jobs will likely only grow greater.