Mary Kwart: Stories of a Wildland Fire Pioneer

“Wildland Fire Pioneer” is a Story Map that traces the story of Mary Kwart, one of the first women to become a part of an elite group of wildland firefighters known as the National Park Service Arrowhead Interagency Hotshots.

The Story Map was developed from three sets of primary sources: a series of essays that Mary Kwart wrote in 2020 describing her career in wildland fire management; an oral history interview conducted with Kwart in 2021 by Lu Ann Jones and Leah Baer of the National Park Service Park History Program; and a cache of photographs and documents from Kwart’s personal archive. These materials contribute to Women’s Voices: Women in the National Park Service Oral History Project, and will be archived at Harpers Ferry Center. A grant from the National Park Foundation made the project possible. Baer, a National Council for Preservation Education intern, created the StoryMap.

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