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American Morning

Smoke Jumpers Prepare for Tough Wildfire Season

Aired May 03, 2001 - 11:19   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Officials are getting ready for another tough wildfire season, probably a record year, they are saying. So, just in case, they've strengthened the vanguard of their elite group known as smoke jumpers. Our Jeff Flock joins us live from just outside Emmett, Idaho -- Jeff, good morning.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Daryn, good morning to you. These are the guys that really have it going on when they're right in the middle of the wildfires. These are the guys that jump down right into it and begin to fight.

We are going to watch a jump as they are training right now. I've got Grant Beebe with me, who is a smoke jumper. And I think we've got a man just about going out of the aircraft right now. Is that right?

GRANT BEEBE, BLM SMOKE JUMPER: That's two of a four-person stake going out. There's the third jumper and the fourth person going out now. So it's a four-person jump, practice jump before the fire season.

FLOCK: We ought to have some picture out of this pretty soon. What's it like up there when you just go out of the aircraft?

BEEBE: Well, right now the jumper you've got a camera on has just done his opening check. So he's checking his parachute to make sure it's good to fly. And now he's going to start bleeding off some altitude so he can come down here and make a safe landing.

FLOCK: Hey, Eric, can you hear me now?

ERIC HIPKE, BLM SMOKE JUMPER: Yeah, I can hear you.

FLOCK: We didn't want to bug you when you were in the middle of your checks up there. But what's it like so far?

HIPKE: Pretty good. I think we might have lost the video. The antenna fell off.

FLOCK: Oh, you're kidding. Well, that's OK. We can hear you loud and clear.

HIPKE: : Are you getting any video? FLOCK: Well, I can't see it right now. So we will just keep coming on down. And tell me, what are the conditions like up there right now?

HIPKE: Really nice. Just passed -- just passed Tim Coglan (ph).

FLOCK: That's right, you're up there with your other guys.

HIPKE: Yeah, I've got three other guys up here. I've got Wally Wasser (ph) and Mark Miller (ph) and Tim Coglan.

FLOCK: Good deal. I want to bring Grant into it. When you are coming down, this is about as dangerous as it gets, right? You're jumping out of an aircraft into fire situation.

BEEBE: Yeah, actually today is not quite as dangerous. It's just a practice situation. (INAUDIBLE) But yeah, in a normal jump, you want to land close to the fire but not in it. And this is why we're aiming for this target right here to see how close we can get to the target to make a safe landing.

FLOCK: Last fire season was just rough. And you're preparing for that again or perhaps even worse.

BEEBE: Yeah, we have a few extra jumpers on this year, so about 20 extra jumpers. And we're hoping that will help us catch fires when they're small before they get too big and costly.

FLOCK: Literally, what is it, $1.5 billion, I mean, a lot of money spent on fire suppression last year. Are you ready for whatever comes at you this time?

BEEBE: You know, we're taking some of that money we normally spend on big fires and we're spending it ahead of time to catch those fires when they're small. So we are doing initial attack, rapid and aggressive initial attack. And that's why we hired 20 more smoke jumpers.

FLOCK: How far do these guys -- how close do these guys get to the fire when they're landing because these often are the first guys that are in on a fire, correct?

BEEBE: Yeah, it depends on the fire. If it is safe, they can land right next to it. It just depends on what the conditions are like.

FLOCK: What are you seeing up there now, Eric?

HIPKE: I'm looking right at my three partners in front of me. We're doing our base leg right now.

FLOCK: You have an ability to control your parachute in some sense and really put yourself where you want to be, right?

HIPKE: Oh, we sure do. We have about 20 miles an hour forward speed on these. And they can turn really quick. FLOCK: How many jumps you made in your life?

HIPKE: This is probably around 270. We don't get nearly as many as sports jumpers. But...

FLOCK: But each one of yours is pretty serious, isn't it?

HIPKE: Exactly.

FLOCK: Yeah.

HIPKE: We're coming into fires.

FLOCK: Hey, Grant, how much gear do they carry when they come down?

BEEBE: They're carrying about 100 pounds worth of stuff. That can be the toughest part of the jump because they've got to carry that out after they land on a difficult fire. They can hike it out as much as 12, 15 miles.

FLOCK: Now we're pretty close to coming down. Who is coming down first, Eric?

HIPKE: That would be Wally Wasser.

FLOCK: OK, we'll see if we can get Wally on the ground here as soon as he touches down. And they're pretty good on the target. They are going to hit this target we've got.

BEEBE: These are high-time jumpers, so we will see how they do.

FLOCK: All right, let's see if we can get one of them down here. These guys go through a lot of training, don't they?

BEEBE: And this guy has thousands of jumps.

FLOCK: He came right to see us. How was the ride down, Wally?

WALLY WASSER, SMOKE JUMPER: Great. It was excellent. This was number 499 for me.

FLOCK: 499. Hey, Eric, are you still up there, are you?

HIPKE: I just landed. There's my parachute falling. There's T.C. (ph) landing.

FLOCK: Now I see you guys going down. This man just rolled. It looks like you could have landed on your feet. Do you roll for a reason?

BEEBE: That's training.

FLOCK: That's so you don't hurt yourself.

ROBBINS: Not nearly as much fun, but it's definitely the training. So got to go that way.

FLOCK: I've got to ask, what makes you want to be a smoke jumper? It's dangerous stuff.

ROBBINS: I've been doing it for 15 years. And I just enjoy the summer away from home and just having fun.

FLOCK: It gets pretty hot out there, doesn't it?

ROBBINS: It's great.

FLOCK: Now, what do you do? Grant, when they get on the ground, what's their first order of business? I see others guys over here pulling this stuff off.

BEEBE: Yeah, their first order of business is to actually get out of their very hot jumpsuits. So they'll drop these jumpsuits, bag up their gear, and make sure it's in a safe place. Then they'll put on the protective gear to fight the fire.

FLOCK: The jumping is just one part of this whole thing. And then they go to work.

BEEBE: Yeah, to be honest, the jumping is the fun part. But the jumping is just how we get to the fire. Once we're on the ground, we're like any other firefighter, engine crew, hot shot, helittack (ph).

FLOCK: Can you bring me over here and let's just take a look at this chute and give me a sense for what it is like in terms of steering down? Nice work, by the way, getting on the ground.

You're pulling on these lines to steer. Is that what you are doing?

BEEBE: Yeah, you see here that Mike has got these toggles on his hands. So if you take a quick look at it, you basically pull right or left depending on which way you want to. So it's real easy. Pull both when you want to break. Super maneuverable, good in high winds.

FLOCK: Yeah. And that's what you're dealing with in a fire. You've got fire-driven wind.

BEEBE: Exactly. The reason a fire is big going to go big is because there's some wind on it. So we need to be able to jump in the highest winds that we can. And we can go about 25 miles an hour.

FLOCK: I want to introduce everybody to Eric. We saw your picture. Hey, Eric, come on over here if you can. I was going to say at least I got your picture there. How was it coming down? Did it come loose on us?

HIPKE: The antenna fell off I guess.

FLOCK: You feel like you're ready for this fire season? HIPKE: Yeah. We do a lot of training and prepare, get a lot of classroom time. And as an additional, doing this jumping too really is a nice deal, getting fully prepared.

FLOCK: You're ready for whatever nature throws at you.

HIPKE: Yeah. At least my mom hopes so.

FLOCK: Good deal. Eric, thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks to all you folks. Hey, Grant, appreciate it. Thanks for the look.

In about two hours -- well, next hour I think we're going to drop some cargo. Typically what happens is the smoke jumpers come in, and then all the rest of their gear comes down. What have you got, stuff like chain saws and all that sort of thing? And they drop that down. We'll watch that next hour and then some more jumpers after that. So should be a full day here on CNN. Stay tuned. Back to you, folks.

KAGAN: All right, Jeff, you stay careful out there when all that stuff starts dropping from those planes, OK? You take cover. We will look forward to that in the next hour.

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