In Montana’s 1949 Mann Gulch fire, made famous in Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire, smokejumpers parachuted in expecting to face a “ten o’clock fire,” meaning they would have it contained by 10 a.m. the next morning. Until the fire jumped across the gulch from one forested hill slope to the steep slope where the firefighters were, and chased them uphill through dry grass at eleven feet per second. Crew foreman Wagner Dodge yelled at the men to drop their tools. Two did so immediately and sprinted over the ridge to safety. Others ran with their tools and were caught by the flames. One
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