The Escape Fire

It happened on August 5, 1949. A crew of 18 smoke jumpers jumped on a fire in Mann Gulch, Montana. On the ground they linked up with a park ranger making their total strength 19 men. As they attempted to advance to a safe location near the Missouri River the fire jumped the gulch and cut them off. The crew Foreman, Dutch, a 33 year old veteran firefighter, had gone ahead to scout and discovered the main fire less than 300 yards from them and advancing. He described the fire at that point as being 200 feet deep and over a mile wide burning 15 feet high.

Recognizing the danger and the fact that he and his crew were caught in what he later called a "Death Trap" he surveyed his options. Forest Service doctrine for fighting fires at that time consisted of four options for a crew in his situation. 1) Find safe harbor in water, however the fire was now between them and the river. 2) Back burn to create a fire stop, however the fire was too close for the back burn to have time to create an area big enough to stop the fire. 3) Work your way through the main fire to get to the relative safety behind it, once again, this option was made impossible by the size and mass of the fire. No one could work through 200 feet of solid flames and survive. 4) The final option and the one that Dutch chose for his crew was to head for high ground. Fires have a way of breaking up and weakening at the top of a ridge line where the ground is rocky and there isn't much fuel.

Dutch returned to his crew and ordered them to reverse course, post haste. About 500 yards later he gave his second order, drop all heavy packs and equipment. As Dutch worked his way to the front of the line conveying this message to each man they began to realize the seriousness of their situation. It was only moments later that they began to feel the intense heat of the main fire breathing down their necks. It dawned on each man that he was running a race he might not win. They began to run for their lives. Some were faster than others and what had been a tight little formation became a long ragged line.

Each man had one thought on his mind, to reach the safety of the ridge top. It became their singular fixation blocking out everything else, they were in immanent danger and there was apparent safety at the top of the ridge. There was only one problem, they were still in the timber and they couldn't yet see the top of the ridge. They didn't know how far away it was or even if they had enough time to make it there. Still they ran, uphill, because that had to lead to safety.

Dutch was the first to break from the tree line several yards ahead of his crew. When he stepped out into the dry grass on the hillside, the top appeared to be 200 yards ahead. Dutch realized, in that moment, what no one else knew, there was no way they were all going to make it to the safety of the ridge top. It was then, in an apparent flash of genius, that Dutch had a moment of intuition. Kneeling in the grass he began to light his own fire, ahead of the main fire.

Three of his crew came upon hem, kneeling in the grass lighting a fire. It shouldn't be hard to imagine what they must have thought when they looked across the open hillside and saw their boss playing with matches in the dry grass. One survivor later said, "We thought he must have gone nuts."

Turning to the men Dutch began to try to explain his reasoning. "Come into my fire" he said. But before he could say much more someone said, "I'm going to the top!" And the three men resumed their race to the top. The next 30 seconds was a dramatic scene as Dutch waded out into the flames of his own fire and pleaded with each man that ran by, "Come into my fire." Like the first three, each man was so fixated with reaching the top that they paid him no mind. Finally, time ran out and the main fire hit them with all of its might. Dutch ran into his own fire and flung himself down in its hot ashes as a 200 foot deep burning inferno broke around him. It took 12 minutes for the fire to pass him by. In that time it consumed all of the crew, save two who made it to the ridge top.

Although the Mann Gulch fire occurred early in the history of the Smoke Jumpers, it is still their special tragedy, the one in which their crew suffered almost a total loss and the only one in which their loss came from the fire itself. It is also the only fire any member of the Forest Service had ever seen or heard of in which the foreman got out ahead of his crew only to light a fire in advance of the fire he and his crew were trying to escape. There is now a name for Dutch's fire and it even has it's own place in Forest Service Firefighting doctrine. They call it the Escape Fire. The two survivors later told a review board that if they had understood what Dutch was doing they probably would have joined him in the safety of his fire.

Can I tell you this morning that this world is destined to be consumed by the fire of judgment. You can't outrun it. You are in a race you can't win. We are surrounded, on a day by day basis with people that are going to lose their bid to outrun the fire of Hell. The real tragedy of the situation is the fact that there is a way of escape, but many of those same people have ignored it.

There is a way to escape from the grip of sin. There is an Escape Fire! On the day of Pentecost God poured out a fire of another kind and it is the only means of escape from the fire of judgment that will one day consume this world. I have made up my mind, on this Tuesday morning, that I'm going to do everything I can to ignite an Escape Fire in my city and invite as may people as I can into it. I realize that, just like in the original story, many will ignore my pleas and pass me by in their failed attempt to outrun the wages of sin. But that won't stop me from calling to a world as it runs by, "Come into my fire!" Somewhere, somehow, somebody will hear my cry and escape the thing that is pursuing them. My job is to keep the Escape Fire burning.

Pardon me while I go build a fire...