Some 300 men and women firefighters for the U.S. Forest Service are smokejumpers — meaning they leap out of airplanes toward wildfires. The Forest Service started the smokejumper program in 1939 to protect timber.
According to the National Smokejumper Association, of the more than 6,000 parachutists in the program’s history, at least 30 have been killed in the line of duty.
VIdeo from Scripps News:
