A smokejumper leaps from an airplane during a training flight above Winthrop, Washington, U.S., June 30, 2016. REUTERS/David Ryder
WINTHROP, Wash. (Reuters) - On a 100-degree day in early June, Matt Mueller did sit-ups in a semicircle with seven other experienced firefighters training to parachute into a wildfire.
Better known as "rookie candidates," they were determined to make it through the five-week program at North Cascades Smokejumper Base in Winthrop, Washington, where the first experimental jumps occurred in 1939.
