Smoke-jumpers are the firefighters who parachute into remote areas to combat fires where it is hard to send regular fire-fighting equipment. In 1949, fifteen smoke-jumpers parachuted into a remote area of Montana named Mann Gulch. Due to the tinder-like conditions, and a shift in the wind, the manageable fire they began to fight at the bottom of a gulch flared into a blaze. As a result the hand tools they brought with them quickly proved inadequate, and they began to retreat back up the ridge to the spot where their parachutes had landed.