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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. What was the Board of Review?

2. Who was the chief forester in Washington D.C. at the time of the Mann Gulch fire?

3. What well-known magazine had a lead article entitled "Smokejumpers Suffer Ordeal by Fire?"

4. When did the investigative committee that the chief forester assembled arrive in Mann Gulch?

5. What were the only sensations the men running from the fire were aware of?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the movie released in 1952 about the Mann Gulch fire? What does Maclean note about the film and its historic accuracy?

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

3. 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?

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

5. How did the perspective shift as the author continued his discussion of the fire from looking at the mushroom cloud in the sky? What did he hope to learn by changing perspective?

6. What two emotions governed the analysis of the tragedy at Mann Gulch? How did Maclean describe the first emotion among the men in Mann Gulch?

7. How did Maclean explain the picture of a big fire? What was it made up of in his opinion?

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

9. How did Jansson's explanation of why the non-flammable objects such as wallets and watches were found uphill from the men's bodies? How did his explanation differ from that of the Forest Service?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the escape fire set by Wag Dodge. Where was the fire located? Why did Dodge light his fire? Upon what information did he base his decision to light the fire? Why was it controversial? What has Dodge's fire contributed to modern firefighting? What are some of the theories concerning the escape fire causing the death of the Smokejumpers?

Essay Topic 2

What is The Story of the Three Winds? Whose theory is this? What does it contribute to the understanding of the Mann Gulch fire?

Essay Topic 3

When he was young, Maclean worked for the Forest Service. His experience fighting one particular fire greatly influenced his desire to study the Mann Gulch fire. What was that experience? Why was it important?

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