Forest History Society Archives and Mann Gulch

I was in the land of no internet access on August 5, the 60th anniversary of the Mann Gulch Fire where 13 firefighters died, 12 of whom were smokejumpers. Some of you may recall that my introduction to wildland fire books was Norman Maclean’s “Young Men and Fire”, where he tells the story of the Mann Gulch fire, and his own investigations over the course of 40 years.

As fate would have it, Carl A. made a comment on my entry on smokejumper history dated August 5. In his comment, that some of you may have read, he said:

Great post! You should also check out some of the Smokejumping history resources at the Forest History Society. A recent post on their blog about Mann Gulch links to some of their online sources on the: August 5, 1949: Mann Gulch Tragedy .

I was intrigued by the Forest History Society, so I followed Carl’s lead and have spent a little time checking out some of the resources available. I have to say that the forty-five minutes or so that I spent on this website does not do it justice.