DeSmet students deliver iconic Mann Gulch fire photo to new Forest Service museum

Middle-schoolers from DeSmet School walked single-file through a back storage room, filled with everything from vintage art and pins to old radios and fire hose, for the new museum on U.S. Forest Service history set to open this summer.

But the kids weren’t just there for a tour of the new National Conservation Legacy and Education Center, students were there to deliver an artifact of smokejumper history to be displayed in the museum.

Students hand-delivered a picture of smokejumpers and C-47 aircraft "Miss Montana" in July of 1949 from the Mann Gulch fire, which claimed the lives of 12 of the men photographed.

The fire started in the Gates of the Mountains in the Helena National Forest and 15 smokejumpers left from Missoula in response, joined by a dispatcher from Helena. Only three survived.

The lessons learned from the Mann Gulch fire informed firefighting techniques and wildfire research for decades, and was the subject of Montana author Norman Maclean’s 1992 book “Young Men and Fire.”

The photo the DeSmet kids delivered is featured on the front cover of Maclean’s book.

Ed Nurse is second from the top right in the photograph, and was slated to be in the next group of smokejumpers to fight the fires until tragedy struck, according to this son Richard.

Richard requested the photo from Maclean’s publisher and decided to give the negative he received to his friend, DeSmet Superintendent Matthew Driessen, who kept it for four years in a safe. The school, which neighbors the new museum property, now has a blown-up copy of the photo in their lobby.

“One of the things that we forget sometimes is that we live in the wilderness,” Driessen told the Missoulian.

He said fires have the power to take out homes and cities, and said smokejumpers leaping out of planes to fight them is “insane.”

“This is life and death at a level of danger that is almost unprecedented,” he said.

The museum’s design is itself an ode to the forests of the U.S., with wooden pillar “trees,” made of wood from across the country supporting the roof in the lobby of the museum. Students noted the smell of trees as they first walked in the door.

A black theater room near the entrance will have a video on a loop featuring a Teddy Roosevelt reenactor discussing the former U.S. president’s vision for conservation in the country, said Lisa Tate, the museum director.

Museum curator David Stack said it’s taken 40 years to accumulate the artifacts for this museum.

The museum has more than 50,000 objects, photographs, documents, books and reports as part of its collection, according to the center’s website.

Outside the museum is a P2V airplane used to release thousands of gallons of retardant on wildfires, as well as a structure resembling a fire lookout.

Richard described his dad, who passed away more than 20 years ago, as “humble” but said he would be “honored” the center took an interest.

“To him, it’s just another picture, but it really holds so much of Montana history,” Richard said.

Tate said she hopes students left the visit with a sense of pride in the “fact they helped save history.”

“What they gave to our curator, Dave, will now forever be in our collection, and it will be safe, and people will be able to access it,” she said.