His life to the fire service. He progressed from the streets of la to career that began at the age of 17 can the volunteer riverside fire department. Now, a smoke jumper, the birth police of smoke jumping. He is oftenly in good shape. Take a look at him. [laughter] he loves gadgets. He founded product research, llc. Prepare yourselves for a thrill evening with the truly exceptionally individual brought to you courtesy of marrow, please join me in welcoming jason. [applause] hi, folks, how are you . I dont want to hear the murphys law. Youre testing me here. So what im going to do about five minutes, its about 22 minutes. You guys can go home and watch on the web. It was done by a friend of mine, air forces gentlemen. Thats the voice. Four years ago at our base, shows a glimpse of what we do without the hollywood. Most of the time we get approached by the big Production Companies and they want a lot of oh and ah. You want to hit play and [inaudible conversations] was that on . Went back to the beginning. It is always on time, so [laughter] you can see the amount of time is back into pause mode. Patriot profiles printed without commercial interruptions by smith wesson. Yeah, go back out of that. Just go back. Yeah. Just go back to the first screen. Yall can watch it by yourselves and well talk in five minutes. [laughter] without commercial interruption. I can just tell you it doesnt work. Yup, this is it. Its the video. Its not the uniform that define it is warrior, the not for those who combat fire is a uniform to deflect on branches, the flames rage. Fire like Mother Nature herself a butte yet an unpredictable force. Fire can save or take it provides the blessings of light, heat, sense of security, other benefits to mankind. In its rage fire is the all consuming dragon that consumes life. If youre going to jump from a perfectly good airplane, its one to look for a flat ground and perfect and another to intentionally jump into the proximity. When i go there, there was this group of guys there that had jumped in and parachutes and thought that was unique. Those that come to the calling do so with years of wild land Fire Fighting under our belt. I had never smet a smoke jumper. He just kind of staired at me. Professional like sports league. People know that Smoke Jumpers are well versed, highly motivated and superbly trained. It was readily accessible to me. He knew he wanted to be a smoke jumper before teenager. I had two brothers and two cousins as well. He started jumping when he was 19 years old. I was very well versed on what i needed to do. It requires a lot of no how and physical stamina to be a smoke jumper. [inaudible] we dont just hire a city firemen from la city. He has to have have some wildlife experience. Two to three years. Yes, sir. Have fun. After three years as a wild land wild fighter. You start with and totally depend on the badge of people, usually not everybody that tries is going to make it. After a person goes through rooky rookie training, not everyone is going to make it. A lot of people like boot camp. There is a standard in that. There are jumpers in this profession 3040 years old and can run and outperform most of the candidates. We have to be in good shape to do this job. Before they put the stamp of approval 10mile in the wilderness and get out safely. This is one of the things that do make a difference. We have all these things and we are not going to leave and it goes out in bag. You get the pack out standards, 3 miles. Thats a huge part of my job if you cant parachute and get out safely. We had people get out and in the third or fifth jump decided it wasnt for them. Either or both will be reasons thats what the 46 weeks is, to get as much grasp to the individual because once you enter the aircraft, doesnt matter if you have a sore throat. You need to get that mission done and get back to base. It is quickly drawn out of you by old heads and experienced jumpers. Theres been a very small and select group of jumpers that have gone. In fighting forest fires, time is precious even the fastest combination of vehicle and foot travel permit small fires to Gain Momentum before they can be reached and controlled. In 1940 came the Smoke Jumpers. The dawn of smoke jumper didnt even get off the ground okay, folks, we are going to stop it there so we can you like that so far, though . How was that . [applause] so you can imagine the work that i had to get through to get the approval to have that done. That was days of me pulling my hair, i dont have much hair as you can see. I did have to do some smoke screens and camouflage because theres always rules, rules that blow your nose and you know, i worked for you guys and we work for the people in the United States and today there wasnt a very good documentary out there. Richard stewart calls me, a friend of a friend and gave me his word on his background working in the air force, he was a friend of a friend and trust him. Please go home and watch the rest of that. Amazing gentlemen that brought us this. So hope you enjoyed and hope you go home and watch the rest of it. Any questions so far . I know we have a mic up here. Theres so much from 1939 to date. Well try to get it all by the time you guys leave today youll kind of understand what we do. Is there any Smoke Jumpers in the audience . Dont be hiding. Where are you from . [applause] [inaudible conversations] the other gentlemen. Very hard base rookie special digit temperatures. They are all hard. Its not easy. Was it easy for you guys . [laughter] and thats usually the response we get. Jason, if you get anything in the world, anything, right now gogo to go back and do rookie training again, gotcha. Sports, it just depends how much you want to do that. In the program thats four to six weeks is a test to that. So they are going to test you every single day for the four to six weeks. I remember one of the things, there was a trainer, not every day, but mostly every other day. You know round of applause. You made it today. You might not be here tomorrow. Have a goodnight. [laughter] we are going to keep it pg13. I want to take this guy. So he was right, though, that you might not be there the next day and they bring that reality back to you. Youre not guarantied that position. Its a privilege. Its not an honor. Youre not guarantied to become a smoke jumper. You learn to take stuff minute by minute and day by day and that was my day at the shower, im here today, well see what happens tomorrow. Any questions so far before we move on . Smoke jumpers in the United States has a dynamic number. As we talked, just think dynamic, since 1939 today, we are still under 6,000. Last year we were like 5,008 5,800. Turn on your mic. Test, test. Is that better . All right. Now, i can move. You can jump now. [laughter] is there room back there. There we go. That makes me happy. So less than 6,000 to date. The two gentlemen back there i can grab their gnomes go on my phone and pull the database and i can see where they rookie if they are ligate. Theres not many of them. [laughter] to date, through the fire season, a very fluctuating number. I dont believe its over 500. In that we have high School Teachers, professors, at our base we had two pair rescue autoof the air out of the air force. We have people coming and going. Some were caught for Summer Vacation to come back to duty, thats not my thing of vacation. High School Teachers love to come back and these guys, hes a high school teacher. I believe hes 54 and he ran a mile and a half in just under nine minutes and 30 seconds. That guy is still a savage. Anything else. Its amaze to go see a guy, you know, in late 50s go out there and pass a 20yearold, 30yearold. Not even breathe hard and smile at you. Thank you. And in that, you know, i never classified i just called Smoke Jumpers, but a lot of people ask how many females. Theres say theres less than 8 . We have the count. Same physical fitness, we have no handicap in that 46 weeks for gender color, race, i dont care if you have purple, once they pass, females, funny, people come and point, is that person back there a smoke jumper, you mean so and so, yeah, she is. So very interesting. Four to six weeks. It wasnt easy. How was your rookie training back in 76, sir . Enduring. There you go. Theyre looking for those folks, when you complete the program youre done. You get on the jump list, that tells us who is going for that day if we get a fire and how many people are on this plane or two planes. Once you pass the program, you can go anywhere in the United States, so its the major leagues we call it, the nfl, theres no more captain, lieutenant telling you to tie your shoe laces, did you take your medicine today. Now you are fully selfcontained. Now you are on the jump list and you can go anywhere in the United States, which is pretty interesting at times. California, oregon, washington, alaska, montana, idaho, yellow stone and im missing one. Out of the nine basis we can do jump anywhere in the United States. You guys have heard storm chasers. Basically thats kind of what we are. We might preposition a jump plane and ten jumpers or 30 jumpers to stick there for x amount of time to help with the fires. Very dynamic, how do you say, a very unique we have a lot of that. So we can endure training and some of the training, go through this, you change your mind and do something else. Theyre teaching to be very flexible because even in the fire service you might be going one way you see them turn and go somewhere else. He got reverted to somewhere else. You fall asleep and now you are in another state. This aint washington. [laughter] this isnt washington. Who make it is deployment decisions . This is a question i dont like. [laughter] the program was designed to get the highesttraining firefighters and fix it. Put the fire out. We do search and rescue if we get called from the sheriffs department. Ive been inserted to go find hikers and meet them and greet them and take them out and thats hard. Jump off in the middle of no where. I have a gps barely working because the trees are so tall. We do special we have the food, water, training to be by ourselves and to do things that most folks dont want to do. Again, thats in the training. So the dispatch it depends on what state youre in. It could come from a lookup tower, flask alaska flight, itll go to alaska. Dispatch, if that fire is not reported, itll go through the nogo checklist. Itll get routed to us and once we get the call we will be off the base in ten minutes. Its quick, very quick. It just depends again where that call is coming from. Theres a test at the end. [laughter] i can walk. You have the main training, what happens each year, do you have to requalify . We are going to do physical, we have to do run, 10mile under 90 minutes which we we have to do in rookie training. I do have an injury and got back in 2013 and im not what we call jump duty. Im with fire duty but i cant jump out of the plane until the doctor says, yeah, youre not going to be shorter or mes up mess up your back anymore. Theres no special treatment. If you cant pass, you cant pass. No special treatment for anyone. [laughter] sure. The protocol, go or no go for a particular fire . There are some states that we call policy or nogo checklist. Thats all preplanned with states so, again, it depends on where that is at. We want Mother Nature to take its course. You want her to clean up all of the stuff thats groan for years and years. If near a home, no we are going to let it burn. Why are you letting the fire happened . The mission i did two weeks ago one of them was Public Information officer. That is a hard job. You can imagine. You can imagine people coming and yelling at you, they dont have the right picture. Its funny because you see a fire behind you and you dont see anything happening. Sir, we have 20 people here, lookouts here. 600 and so many people. Its so much the dynamic thats happening. Its a hard one. I think its certain in my opinion if its placed up there where it cannot get life, let Mother Nature take its course, that is my personal opinion for that. The fire is good. It gets so much dead growth and gets very mad. I call her her and she gets very pissed and thats the fad bad fire. It makes a lot of energy and that can ruin stuff. Were talking stuff thats growthing for a growing for a long time. Over 200degrees. Thats the bad fire. We dont want them to get that big. Any questions so far, folks . Im curious about how you work with the incident commands because when a fire start often in this state it can be the sheriff that is correct. Overseeing it and how do you get in there quickly when a fire has Great Potential but the incident command has not done at the federal level . How do you answer the liaison with those types of situation . A good example is youve all seen hurricane, national disasters, 9 11, that was in the command system. Were very good at natural disasters, not just fires, so today we train folks from new york city, the last mission i had, we had two guys from hawaii. Not just the United States, were talking around the world. Israel had a big issue with fires, some people were killed, around christmas time. That country hit the panic button, went to the United States, we had jumpers, get on a commercial flight to fly to israel. We never got that far. Some did get to israel and did help out. Thats how fast we can mobilize which blows your mind. Smoke jumpers, we are not in the large command system yet. When we get there we have command, ict5, 4s all different things. Every jumper is going to have plus or minus of those training qualifications. Totoday in the smoke jumper world, we have itt5s, small lighting fire and train through the years that can handle pretty good incident. We are talking now helicopters, ict3 commander. You start seeing on the news and goes to command system where type 2 comes in and types. It gets confusing. We do follow a structure protocol that does work. Yeah. What are some of the prin principles that you use for every fire . You take care of your buddies back or whatever. Good question. I always watch out for big foot. [laughter] from the time we take off, every jumper on the plane is hanging onto reserve. You have to imagine that. Have you ever stepped out your vehicle in a running highway . We are doing a lot of things to watch each others back. Theres so many things that were doing up there. Your clothes. In rookie training, we have acronyms for rookie brother, rookie sister and all this stuff. When youre a rookie with your class, at your class number. I asked the gentleman in the back, 72. That means he completed his training in 72. Mine is 99. Write something happened ill steer to these two gentlemen in the back because i came, they are like a family member. Very close on that aspect of the jumper. I mean jumpers around the world whether they be military, airborne, from other countries. Its a handshake and hug, what not. Hope that answers your question, besides big the. Theres a question in the back. Can you talk briefly about what you carried in your bags . India special equipment for certain situations . When i was standing up at the beginning of us take it all the stuff out of this small bag. You can see all that gear that i stuck in a small bag sitting on this table. We have some very, i know double that more gear than some jumpers because im a tech guy. In my pack i have my thermal imaging stuff so i can literally look for heat signatures from fire. Down to come if there was a person standing there, a few seconds ago. Animals, heat, what if i need to do. If its a search and rescue mission i can scan hillsides for any heat signature if were looking for somebody. There were some civilians overdue in a kayak and a cut about 30mile an hour winds. Trying to find two people. Thats a big task. I was able to skip and i told them theres nothing at all there. The whole area from here to here is clear so those people are somewhere else. I can a lot of different gear because i like to work easier, not harder out there. You guys can check out a lot of the gear you. As this is very specialized today from our textile to our radios, our gps systems. Some of the med gear that we are carrying, this is called a laser flare. This is a cool device. This is not the stuff youre seeing on the news, pointing at aircraft in august of the this is actually designed to point at aircraft. And i can signal a pause or aircraft coming to me at three to five miles during high noon, delight. And that night i can go 30 miles, which is great. If i have a jumper and was busted up, or its me and i can have a guy about 10 miles out hes calling, i dont know where youre at. I say, hold on. So thats what my company does. We test a minimum of one year, and this guy actually for almost four years of testing before it got my stamp of approval and weve got guys now in california and other bases using this because it works. I have big this thing at high noon at an airport at a mile. Thats important to me because if i need to talk to someone and they are trying to get the location of them and they cant find discount it just makes it harder. It makes the but a little bit harder. s work easier. This is just some of the gear we have. We call smart textiles where, in fact, am it actually gets hard. So protects my phone, nice and pliable know but if you take a hammer to come to protect whatever is inside the. So theres some Cool Technology that is coming out its been out for a while. This is all technology. This is about three years old. We have small little saws. We have a solar system so we jump now with common human, cell towers are available and its sure nice to go under the chief of the discussion and give them whats going on so i can power cell phones, headlamps, go pro cameras if we are filming. And whats good about this is ive been on missions where six days and i did need to be resupplied for batteries. Taxpayers are paying, helicopter, depends on the size, could be a thousand, it just depends on the helicopter. Its not cheap to buy batteries out to me. I dont like that. Its nonsense. What i do is i would switch or something. On that fire, the Incident Commander talks about what hes asking fire soandso, why isnt he, hes in gear. A jumper. You dont want to know. Hes fine. So for six, seven days i dont need any batteries. I was charging everything by myself. Fully selfcontained jumpers as we should be. So critical. And theres some companies that will be testing,