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Archive Home > 2009 > November > 14 > Smokejumper was one of first to make the leap

Smokejumper was one of first to make the leap

Earl Cooley made 49 jumps into wildfires

By Patricia Sullivan / The Bulletin
November 14, 2009

Earl Cooley, 98, who was one of the first two U.S. Forest Service smokejumpers to parachute into a forest fire and later was a spotter on the Mann Gulch Fire that killed 13 firefighters, died Monday at his home in Missoula, Mont., of pneumonia.

As a 23-year-old outdoorsman who had built logging....

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