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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many Smokejumpers were in the plane ready to parachute into Mann Gulch?

2. When did Dodge return to Missoula?

3. Where did Gisborne die?

4. Where was the headquarters for Region One of the Forest Service?

5. What is a crown fire?

Short Essay Questions

1. How were the Smokejumpers delivered to the drop site? Who was on the plane with them? What did each man do in the mission?

2. 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?

3. Who was Robert Jansson? What was his part in the Mann Gulch fire?

4. What was the profile of a smokejumper in the 1940s?

5. What are the two causes of fires? What caused the Mann Gulch fire? Where did the fire start? How?

6. Where was the author when the fire spread to the side hill trail, the firefighters' second line of defense? What important decision did he make right as he saw the fire jump from one side of the trail to the other?

7. 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?

8. What is a Pulanski? Where did it come from? What does it do? Who is it named after?

9. What did the author know about the Mann Gulch fire based on his experience with fires as a young man?

10. What are the roles of the foreman and the second-in-command in a jump team of firefighters? What is each man responsible for during the approach to the fire?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Maclean and Laird Richardson developed three main questions for which they would seek answers during their study of the Mann Gulch fire. What were those three questions, and did the two men find the answers? If so, what were the answers they found?

Essay Topic 2

Maclean says at the end of his story he wrote his fire report "so I could accompany young men whose lives I might have lived on their way to death. I have climbed where they climbed, and in my time I have fought fire and inquired into its nature." Discuss this quote.

Essay Topic 3

Maclean suggests that there were a set of specific and unique circumstances surrounding the jump into the Mann Gulch fire. He mentions, for example, that the radio broke upon landing leaving the Smokejumpers unable to communicate. What other specific events and circumstances made this jump unique and unusual? How did each event affect the outcome of the tragedy?

(see the answer keys)

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