Earl Cooley

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It takes nerve to fight fires. But leaping out of planes and parachuting directly into infernos requires a rare brand of bravery. And no man better exemplified this fearlessness than Montana native Earl Cooley, who died Nov. 9 at 98.

Cooley was one of the original smoke jumpers, firefighters who parachute into remote blazes, often in deep wilderness. His first attempt was less than perfect--which was perhaps not surprising, considering that he had never been in an airplane before he took his practice runs. In July 1940, Cooley and a colleague leaped out of a plane over a fire in Idaho. Cooley's parachute lines became tangled on the way down, and he landed in the branches of a spruce tree. But the pair brought the blaze under control by the following morning.

The feat marked the beginning of the Forest Service's smoke-jumpers program, and Cooley became the group's first superintendent. His career wasn't flawless; in 1949, Cooley directed the crew battling the Mann Gulch fire in Montana, at which 12 smoke jumpers lost their lives.

Cooley never forgot the tragedy, but his confidence didn't waver. "I don't know why, but I was never afraid to jump," he once said. That's uncommon nerve, even by the standards of men who leap into flames.