A
smoke jumper is a
firefighter who
parachutes out of an
airplane to fight
forest fires.
The first two smoke jumpers ever were Rufus Robinson and Earl Cooley who did the dive on July 12, 1940. They were paid $193 a month at the time.
Today there are more than 5000 smoke jumpers, both men and women, risking their lives performing one of the toughest and most dangerous jobs around.