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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who was Mrs. Brown?
(a) The postmistress.
(b) The owner of the lodge.
(c) The wife of the owner of the lodge.
(d) The telephone operator.

2. Who named the area around Mann Gulch the "Gates of the Mountains?"
(a) Clark and Simon.
(b) Merriweather and Smith.
(c) Smith and Gulch.
(d) Lewis and Clark.

3. Why are parachutes made of nylon instead of silk?
(a) So they float to the ground smoother.
(b) So they are not as expensive to replace.
(c) So they are washable.
(d) So they are not eaten by grasshoppers.

4. What did Jansson send up to the survivors of the Mann Gulch fire?
(a) A doctor, food, and assistance.
(b) A doctor and more firefighters.
(c) Food, blankets, and water.
(d) A doctor, litter, blankets, and blood plasma.

5. Where did the Fish Creek fire actually burn?
(a) Down the tributary.
(b) Both up and down the tributary.
(c) Across the back acres of the forest.
(d) Through the forest to the town.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Harry Gisborne witness in 1929?

2. What question did the author ask Mrs. Brown before leaving the lodge?

3. How many feet does a Smokejumper fall before his parachute opens?

4. What was one reasonable cause of the Mann Gulch fire advanced by scientists?

5. What did the author do when he reached the mountain ridge, having escaped the Fish Creek fire?

Short Essay Questions

1. As the author was running up the hillside away from the creek, where was the fire? What choices did he have for escape? What happened when he was half way up the hillside?

2. When was the fire at Mann Gulch? Where was the author at the time of the fire? When the author arrived in the small town at Seely Lake, how did he learn of the fire at Mann Gulch? What did he learn about the death of the smokejumpers who were sent to fight the fire?

3. Who invented the first parachutes? What were parachutes and their cords made of then? What material were they made of in 1949 when the Smokejumpers landed on Mann Gulch? Why?

4. Why did Dodge set a fire in front of the fire raging toward himself and his men on Mann Gulch? What was he trying to accomplish? Why did his men not follow his orders?

5. Why did Dodge, Sallee, and Rumsey escape death from the fire, and the other men, including Hellman and Diettert, did not?

6. What actually happened at the Fish Creek fire that was not part of the plan? How did the fire spread? What surprises of nature awaited the Forest Service firefighters?

7. To what did Maclean compare the smokejumper's jump from the plane? Why?

8. Where was the big fire the author had fought when he was in the Forest Service? How did the people living in the area support themselves and their families?

9. What is a crown fire? How does it become ignited? What does it sound like in the forest? What elements are necessary to create a crown fire?

10. What did the author do when he reached the top of the ridge? What did he decide to do next?

(see the answer keys)

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