Hall of Flame
Museum of Firefighting
Wildland Firefighting
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| In August of 2003 the museum
opened a gallery dedicated to the subject of wildland firefighting. The
2,000 square foot gallery includes a replica of a 1930s era L-6 lookout
cabin, several pieces of motorized wildland firefighting apparatus, and displays
that tell the story of old and new wildland firefighting -- the smokejumpers,
hotshots, helitack crews, engine crews, class II crews, air tankers, and lookouts who
define the subject.
Visitors use a twenty five page catalogue as they tour the gallery. The catalogue contains background information on each subject as well as captions for every photograph on display in the gallery. This allows us to make the photographs themselves larger. We can also develop each subject without the need to condense the text to a few words. It is also much easier to read a caption from a catalogue than from a wall mounted panel.
In addition to the exhibits there is a television in the gallery which shows several wildland firefighting related videos, and a computer running an educational program introducing users to techniques of firefighting in the forests of Florida, the mountains of Montana, the prairies of Idaho, and the chaparral districts of Southern California. |
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Entrance to the Wildland Firefighting Gallery |
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One of three exhibits that honors wildland firefighter line of duty deaths. |
1908 horse drawn chemical, 1921 Brockway Torpedo, and 1930 Moreland brush truck are part of the gallery | |
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Don Hale built this replica of an L-6 Forest Service Lookout from plans provided by Ray Kresek. To the right of the cabin is a panel displaying important wildfire fighting tools: chainsaw, drip can, bladders, a hose clamp, a rescue shelter, and a meal ready to eat (MRE) package. |
From inside the cabin we have created a diorama of the view from the Diamond Point Lookout near Payson, Arizona. The lookout protects forests along the region's Mogollon Rim. Inside the cabin is a Bosworth Firefinder, a model used in the forests of the northwest. The map in the firefinder is centered on the Diamond Point lookout. Visitors can orient the firefinder to geographical features on the diorama, just as the lookouts did. | |
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| The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection donated this Osborne Firefinder once used in its Smith Mountain Lookout Cabin in central California. The panel behind displays pictures of lookouts found by Ray Kresek in his book Fire Lookouts of the Northwest. | This Panel dedicated to the California Department of Fire Protection and Forestry Management is typical of over a dozen other panels dedicated to the Smokejumpers, Hotshots, Type II firefighters, engine, crews, and helitack crews. | |
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| This 1921 American La France / Brockway "Torpedo" chemical car fought brush and structural fires in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. | The Los Angeles Department of Forestry, later incorporated into the Los Angeles County Fire Department, designed and built this custom brush truck in 1930 on the chassis of a Moreland truck. The rig was donated to the museum in 1990 by Gene Autry. | |
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| The Volunteer Fire Department of Phoenix, Arizona purchased this 1908 chemical wagon from the Anderson Coupling Company of Kansas City, Missouri to fight brush and structural fires. | At left is a manikin equipped as a member of the Payson, Arizona Hotshot crew. The manikin at the right is equipped with a smokejumper suit, helmet, packs and chutes donated by the Smokejumper Center of Missoula, Montana. Common wildland firefighting tools on the panel were donated by the California Department of Fire Protection. In the center is a deployed emergency shelter donated by Rural Metro Fire Department. | |
| Left: A fully equipped smokejumper was donated by the Smokejumper Center of Missoula, Montana, through the courtesy of Smokejumper Wayne Williams. At he end of the gallery is a TV showing a selection of five wildland firefighting videos, and a computer running the eductaional software program "Living with Fire", produced by Florida State University. |  |
Our primary consultant on the exhibit is Mr. Tom Story of Tempe, Arizona. Tom is a professional wildland fire photo journalist with an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject couples with years of experience at fire scenes throughout the western states. Tom took almost all of the photographs that we used in the exhibit. Their high quality is enhanced by the detailed information that Tom, as a reporter, recorded for each one of his photographs. The museum's catalogue for the gallery identifies each of these photos using Tom's data. In addition to the photos, Tom also provided the staff with many pages of information about all phases of wildland firefighting, much of which has been incorporated into the Gallery Guide.
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One of the major contributors to the project has been Ray Kresek, organizer of the Fire Lookout Museum in Spokane, Washington. Ray is a retired Spokane firefighter, but has also had years of experience as a wildland firefighter. The collection of wildland firefighting equipment which he has installed in the Fire Lookout Museum is the largest such exhibit in the United States. In March of 2001 Ray prepared a "Review of the Year 2000 Northwest Wildfires" that deserves attention from all Americans. It analyzes almost a hundred fires in the 2000 fire season in Montana, Idaho and Washington that burned 1 1/4 million acres and cost 285 million dollars to fight. Ray makes a strong case that these fires could have been controlled but for a variety of reasons were not. His case by case analysis shows a number of deficiencies that could be corrected with a return to the policies of early detection and quick response that have been neglected during the past few years for a variety of reasons that Ray explains.
Ray's Report is published on this web site for review by visitors. It provides a lot of food for thought.
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We are indebted to the following donors of artifacts to the exhibit:
| The Payson, Arizona Hotshots |
The Missoula, Montana Smokejumper Center |
| Nick's Boots of Spokane, Washington |
Rural Metro Fire Department, Scottsdale, Arizona |
| The California Department of Fire Protection |
Mr. Tom Story |
The major published sources for the exhibit came from the writings of Dr. Stephen Pyne, Mr. Stan Cohen, Mr. Michael Thoele, and Mr. Ray Kresek.
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