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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 feeling did the Smokejumpers share with all other youth their age?

2. What did Maclean and the others agree was the second key point on the hillside they needed to locate?

3. What year is generally seen as the beginning of modern scientific study of fire behavior?

4. What were the emotions governing the Mann Gulch tragedy since it was first analyzed?

5. What did Maclean call the "North Star that guides all arguments?"

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

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

3. To what did the author compare the cloud of smoke atop the Mann Gulch fire when the blowup rose out of the gulch?

4. What different theories did Henry Thol on one side and Carl Gustafson present as to the escape fire set by Dodge? How did Maclean suggest the Review Board of the Mann Gulch fire might have immediately answered the question of the escape fire set by Dodge?

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

6. What were Sallee and Rumsey arguing about as Maclean approached them on the ridge? What did they agree on?

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

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

9. 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?

10. Whom did Maclean find at the Hoerner Waldorf-Champion paper mill? What information did this person give Maclean to move him along in his search for Sallee and Rumsey?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Henry Thol, Sr. was the leader of the group of families suing the Forest Service for the wrongful death of their family members. Discuss Mr. Thol and the impact he had on the Mann Gulch fire. What was his opinion of how the young men died in the fire? Why was it important to Maclean's investigation?

Essay Topic 3

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

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