The Mann Gulch fire was a wildfire started on August 5, 1949, in the Gates of the Mountain Wild Area, now named the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness, in Helena National Forest, in western Montana. A team of 15 smokejumpers parachuted in that afternoon. After joining up with a firefighter already on the ground, the 16 men were headed downhill to the river as a safe refuge because of increasing fire activity on the opposite, north-facing slope, but could not see for a time that the fire had spotted in front of them and had cut off their escape route, forcing them to turn back, uphill. The fire, meanwhile, began advancing on them rapidly, driven by up-gulch winds, and accelerated by the dry grass on the south-facing slope. Wind, slope, and fine fuel caused the fire to advance faster than they could retreat, and they were overrun. 12 smokejumpers and a ground-based firefighter were fatally burned. Two escaped unharmed by running up the fall line to a rock ridge where they found a crack through which they escaped.
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