Now Earthbound, After Years of Fighting Wind and Fire

WILLIAM YARDLEY

The New York Times

October 2, 2011

WINTHROP, Wash. — Kristy Longa­necker smiled while her husband fell from the clear blue sky.
“He got to live his dream,” said Ms. Longa­necker, barely both­ering to watch. “I’m envi­ous of that sometimes. How many people get to live their dream?”
Thump.
So ended jump No. 896 — one final shock to the skeleton, one final per­fect parachute roll, a practice run with no more rea­son to practice. Last month, Dale Longa­necker turned 57, the mandatory re­tire­ment age for fire­fight­ers employed by the United States For­est Ser­vice. Friday was his last day on the job, and his was       

not just an­oth­er re­tire­ment.

Mr. Longa­necker has spent 38 years as one of the most elite of his kind, a smoke jumper. He has parachuted out of air­planes into some of the most re­mote wildfires in the West carrying lit­tle more than a shov­el, a gallon of wa­ter and a bot­tle of ibupro­fen. He was 19 when he made his first jump, and the For­est Ser­vice says his 896 jumps — 362 of which were into fires — are a record that may nev­er be bro­ken. Sometimes, he might stay in the woods for a night to fight a fire. At oth­ers, he would be gone for two weeks, off all but ce­les­tial grids.
“Hon­ey,” he would inquire via satellite phone, “did you check the sprinklers?”
He grew up here in east­ern Wash­ington, where the Cascade Range gives way to the dry hills of the Methow Valley. His fa­ther was a beekeeper.       

His moth­er raised him and his five broth­ers and sis­ters. He said he was 8 when he decided on a ca­reer.

“When I was growing up there was the mill, the fish hatch­ery and oth­er stuff like that,” Mr. Longa­necker said. “And I re­member go­ing, ‘I think I want to smoke-jump.’ ”
            

His old­er broth­ers jumped for a few seasons, then moved on to oth­er things. Mr. Longa­necker stayed, and he has spent the past four decades on the front lines of an evolving fed­eral wildfire pol­icy. Long ago he was told to put out ev­ery fire as quickly as pos­sible. More re­cently the message has been to let some burn nat­urally for the sake of for­est health.
“In the long run I think it’s the way to do it,” he said, “because if there were no humans here, it would burn.”
But he said he would not be surprised if pol­icy shifted again, because humans are here: “If we let it burn, it will all burn.”
He says he has seen cli­mate change up close, from shrink­ing glaciers to expanding fires and fire seasons. The summers are hotter.