By Ron Brown
 
July 3, 2009
 
MEDFORD, Ore. - Smokejumping was first proposed in 1934, but it wasn't until 1939 that the first jumps were made at Winthrop, Washington.
 
Ron Lufkin's father Francis was one of the first.
 
"His job was to climb the trees to get parachutists out of the trees. They had no way to make a let down then. So he was a climber. So he got 'em down. And then my mother found out that he was working with the smokejumpers and she told him not to make any jumps. And by then he'd already made his first jump. So next summer when they started making smokejumping officially in 1940, he made the second fire jump ever made by a smokejumper," Veteran Smokejumper Ron Lufkin said.
 
Ron Lufkin was part of a volunteer crew of mostly former smokejumpers who gathered last week at the old Illinois Valley Smokejumper Base to help restore some of the old buildings there. The Illinois Valley Base was established in 1943. It's the second one ever established by the U.S. Forest Service and operated until 1982.
During World War II most of the smokejumpers were volunteers who did not want to fight in the war.
 
"This base was manned by conscientious objectors, called the CPS, Civilian Public Service Group 103. They manned the base from '43 to '45. '46 was when the vets came back and took over," said Chuck Sheley, editor of Smokejumpers Association Magazine.
 
"Being a part of it, I naturally felt it was important. But then it made a great job for in the summer. And so the three years I was here, '48, '49, '50, we had a lotta fun. I flew out here in the old Ford Tri-motor many times in those days," Former Illinois Valley Smokejumper Paul Block said.
 
"This Siskiyou Smokejumper Base, it's nicknamed the 'Gobi' after the Gobi desert in China. And the base was usually run with 28 smokejumpers. We covered eight states primarily, that was our primary coverage. And indirectly, another 18 states," 17-year Smokejumper Gary Buck said.
 
"Camaraderie here? Very tight. I transfered from here up to Alaska where there's 70, 80, 100 jumpers. And it just wasn't the same family feel you usually had here in Cave Junction," said Sheley.
 
Sheley was a jumper out of the Illinois Valley base from 1959 to 1966.
 
"We hand sewed all the jumpsuits that we jumped out of. We repaired and rigged all the parachutes. All the cargo chutes were constructed here. And the loft is the center of smokejumping at any base, and that loft is extremely historic and extremely unique because of it's age and the character of the building," Buck said.
 
Nearly 300 smokejumpers are working from forest service bases in McCall and Grangeville, Idaho; Redding, California; West Yellowstone and Missoula, Montana; Winthrop, Washington; and Redmond, Oregon.
 
There are also two Bureau of Land Management smokejumper bases. In Boise, Idaho, and Fairbanks, Alaska.