UpDate - Vol. 14, No. 35, Page 1
June 22, 1995
Prof's fiery past brings insights into tragedy

     As a young man growing up in St. Louis, David Norton became a member
of the U.S. Forest Service's smoke jumpers, an elite group who parachute to
remote areas to fight fires wherever they occur in America's vast
wilderness.
     Now, decades later because of the UD philosophy professor's
experiences as a smoke jumper, the Department of the Interior has asked
Norton to analyze its report of the 1993 Glenwood Springs fire in Colorado,
in which 14 fire fighters perished.
     Norton also is involved in another project, involving the 1949 Mann
Gulch fire in Montana, a disaster in which 13 men lost their lives.
     Norton became a fire fighter in Idaho at the age of 16, during his
summer vacation from school. He was a sawyer, cutting down logs and trees,
one of the methods used to contain forest fires. He was thoroughly trained,
he recalled, but still had a few close calls.
     "I was surrounded by fire twice, but the foreman kept track of where
we were and we were rescued. One time, I didn't even know we were in danger
until I saw others coming toward us in soaking wet clothing, carrying more
wet clothing so that we could get out," he said.
     After two summers as a fire fighter, Norton, by then an engineering
student at Washington University, worked at strip mining in Oklahoma to
gain some engineering experience, but the following summer went through
rigorous training to become a smoke jumper.
     "The training was similar to that of paratroopers with physical
conditioning, then jumps from towers and later from planes. We had seven
practice jumps with instructors on the ground giving us directions from
bullhorns so that we learned how to control the chutes when landing in
rough terrain. Anyone who didn't measure up washed out of the program. The
smoke jumpers were the top fire fighting outfit in the U.S. Forest Service,
and there a feeling of pride among its members," Norton said.
     After basic training, the smoke jumpers were sent to a base where they
were on stand-by and dispatched to fight forest fires, which were mostly
small, wherever they were sighted.
     "We were dressed in canvas suits in those days and landed with saws
and axes, while heavier equipment was parachuted down. After the fire was
extinguished, we would leave the equipment, which was brought out later,
and trek to the nearest ranger station, which usually had a small landing
strip. We were then flown back to our base," Norton said.
     It was an adventurous summer for Norton, and he planned to return the
following year when another opportunity arose. "I was considered a survival
expert and was offered a job accompanying a geologist who was prospecting
for uranium in Alaska for the U.S. Geological Survey. Since I had never
been there, this seemed a great opportunity to see the Alaskan wilderness,
although no significant amount of uranium was discovered," Norton said.
     This chapter of his life seemed closed, as Norton joined the Air
Force, then began his career as an engineer and later decided to make his
ongoing interest in philosophy into a full-time vocation.
     However, now he has come full circle and is once again involved with
the smoke jumpers.
     In 1992, Norton was asked by the University of Chicago Press to review
Young Men and Fire, an award-winning book about the Mann Gulch fire, by
Norman Maclean.
     Norton's review, which appeared Dec. 13, 1992, in the Wilmington News
Journal, brought him to the attention of the staff of the U.S. Department
of the Interior, which asked him to comment on its Board of Review's
investigation of the Glenwood Springs fire.
     In reviewing the report about the Glenwood Springs South Canyon fire,
Norton said that his conclusion was that the fire fighters had not received
adequate training for fighting brush fires where the vegetation consists of
grass, shrubs and scrub trees. "Fires can race up hills faster than men
because heat rises and the fire 'pre-cooks' the vegetation ahead. Brush
fires are light fuel fires that burn faster than heavy fuel timber fires,
which is what these men were used to fighting. That helped to bring about
the tragedy," Norton said.
     Norton has sent his views to the Department of the Interior and is
awaiting comment from them.
     The review of Young Men and Fire also brought him in contact with
another former smoke jumper, Wayne Williams of the U.S. Forest Service, and
fire scientist Richard Rothermel.
     Norton called the book a "stunning accomplishment" by which "Maclean
administers healing understanding to the open wounds that have been the
fire's enduring aftermath."
     However, Norton, Williams and Rothermel are working on a joint article
on the Mann Gulch fire to finally set the record straight, according to
Norton.
     "During the Mann Gulch fire, Wag Dodge, the foreman of the crew, lit
an escape fire and lay in the burned area of the fire he had set and
survived the fire," Norton said. "The others with him apparently thought he
was crazy, did not follow him, and most perished. According to the U.S.
Forest Service, Dodge invented the escape fire at the Mann Gulch fire, but
it was a known procedure before then and should have been taught to the
fire fighting crew, which might have saved their lives."
     There have been many advances in fighting forest fires, including the
use of helicopters, fire-retardant clothing and fire shelters, but in some
instances, as Norton wrote in his review, "smoke-jumper confidence didn't
truly reckon with the elemental power of nature."
                                                        -Sue Swyers Moncure