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Yellowstone National Park
West Yellowstone Interagency Fire Center
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Yellowstone National Park maintains one Park Service smokejumper at the West Yellowstone Interagency Fire Center. Smokejumpers parachute to fires in remote areas and take the necessary action to manage the fires. Since Yellowstone is almost 2.2 million acres of de facto wilderness, smokejumpers have a key role in accessing fires that are very far from roads. In addition to the Park Service smokejumper, the U.S. Forest Service employs about 24 smokejumpers and one smokejumper aircraft. The current "jumpship" is a Dornier 228 from Bighorn Aviation which carries eight jumpers and cargo.
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| "Jumper 13" the Dornier 228 "jumpship." |
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| Cargo being dropped to the jumpers. |
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The West Yellowstone Interagency Fire Center is also home to one contract retardant airplane. Currently, this is Tanker 25, a P3 Orion from the Aerounion company. This plane supplies retardant to fires throughout the nation at a moments notice. The retardant is a mix of dry compound, similar to fertilizer, and water. Retardant is mixed and loaded at the West Yellowstone tanker base under the direction of the mixmaster.
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| A tanker dropping retardant on a fire. |
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| |  | | Did You Know? There were no wolves in Yellowstone in 1994. The wolves that were reintroduced in 1995 and 1996 thrived and there are now over 300 of their descendents living in the Greater Yellowstone Area. more... | | |
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Last Updated: June 11, 2007 at 16:49 MST |