View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Sallee and Rumsey, toward the end of their run, how many times did the smoke part in order for them to see the top of the ridge?
(a) Many times.
(b) Once.
(c) Two or three times.
(d) Four or five times.

2. What did Mike Mansfield accomplish for the families of the fallen Smokejumpers?
(a) He tried to delay the Mann Gulch Report.
(b) He added funds to the Forest Service.
(c) He raised the burial allowance from $200 to $400 dollars.
(d) He appointed a special advisor to assess the situation.

3. What feeling did the Smokejumpers share with all other youth their age?
(a) The feeling that their lives would be long.
(b) The feeling that they could be successful firefighters.
(c) The feeling that they were immortal.
(d) The feeling that education was important.

4. Of what material are the Mann Gulch crosses made?
(a) Concrete.
(b) Plastic.
(c) Wood.
(d) Marble.

5. How did one doctor describe death from suffocation and lack of oxygen in a fire?
(a) It was like dying of cancer.
(b) It was like drowning.
(c) It was like falling asleep.
(d) It was like suffocation.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is one of the best bibliographical references about the Mann Gulch fire available to Laird and Maclean?

2. Where did Maclean place the ashes of his wife Jessie when she died?

3. How did Rumsey verify that the tin can of potatoes the men found near Hellman's marker was the same one left there after the fire?

4. What did Maclean's wife die from?

5. What did Maclean believe the Smokejumpers had accomplished spiritually at the time of their deaths?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Maclean mean when he said, "viewing total conflagration is literally blinding, as sight becomes sound."

2. How did Dr. Hawkins describe the death process the Smokejumpers underwent in the final moments of their lives? To what did Maclean compare their suffering?

3. What did the author mean when he spoke of bi-visual and tri-visual?

4. What happened to the men when they left the foreman, Dodge, at the site of the escape fire? What name did the author give to the point at which the men left? From what perspective did the author tell the story of their assent?

5. What did the gulch look like forty years after the fire? Was there any living vegetation?

6. Who is the firsthand source of information Maclean and his investigative partner Laird Robinson set out to find before they did anything else? Why? Who were they looking for?

7. Who was Henry Thol, Sr.? What was his role in the Mann Gulch fire?

8. How did the Forest Service receive Maclean when he began searching for the documentation on the Mann Gulch fire? Why?

9. What did Sallee and Rumsey explain to Maclean that answered one of his most important questions? What was the question? What was the answer?

10. Why did both parents and the Forest Service hope for silence after the court judgments concerning suits filed against the Forest Service?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,370 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample