VIDEO: Starting last week and running through April, smokejumpers are practicing their parachute landings around Fairbanks and North Pole in advance of Alaska’s 2026 wildfire season.
These smokejumpers will spend the summer parachuting into wildfire situations across an area of responsibility larger than the state of Texas, in addition to wildfire emergencies elsewhere in the state of Alaska and in the lower-48.
“We’re a wildland firefighter just like everybody else. It’s just our method of getting to the fire might be slightly different than the rest of the fire program,” explained veteran smokejumper Isaiah Fischer, who now works as Paracargo Manager with the U.S. Wildland Fire Service in Alaska, which has its operations centered on Fort Wainwright and employs around 80 smokejumpers each year.
For experienced jumpers, these training sessions are meant to refresh their skillset, while rookies undergo a longer set of exercises to make sure they’re ready to handle the job when the need arises.
“All of our guys have to go through what we call a refresher. Basically, we got to go through all of the, the procedures to be proficient in jumping again and in the end, after the end of those two weeks, we’ll go through all the fire line refreshers,” Fischer said.
