[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 89 (Tuesday, July 12, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                               DON MACKEY

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, last week, the Nation heard the news of 
the tragic fire in Glenwood Springs, CO, which took the lives of 14 
Forest Service firefighters. Today I would like to share with the 
Senate the story of one of them: Don Mackey of Hamilton, MT at the foot 
of the Bitteroot Mountains.
  Don Mackey was one of 10 smokejumpers from the Forest Service's 
northern region team, based in Missoula, who flew out to Colorado to 
help put down the Glenwood Springs fire. Put simply, his job as a 
smokejumper was to parachute out of low-flying planes to stop forest 
fires.
  In his book ``Young Men and Fire,'' the Montana writer Norman 
Maclean--who, by the way, also wrote the book ``The River Runs Through 
It''--told the story of the last tragic forest fire, the Mann Gulch 
fire of 1949, just outside of Helena, MT. Mr. Maclean described the 
smokejumpers as follows:

       The Smokejumpers are * * * the crack firefighters of the 
     Forest Service, the shock troops. Whenever fires are 
     critical, which practically always means big, that's where 
     they are, from Missoula, Montana, to Minnesota to New Mexico 
     to Alaska, and they don't care how they get there--by plane, 
     bus, horse, or on foot, just so it is the fastest way.

  To be a smokejumper is to be part of an elite. You must have great 
physical strength. You must have high intelligence and rigorous 
training. And you must have extraordinary courage.
  Don Mackey had all of that, and he had something more. He had a sense 
of duty, honor, and compassion. He had the qualities that make an 
ordinary man or woman a hero.
  When the wind shifted out at Glenwood Springs last Wednesday 
afternoon, Don Mackey was safe. He was already at the top of the ridge. 
He could have stayed right there. But when the fire blew up, and he saw 
his crew trapped on the slope below, it was these qualities--strength, 
courage, honor, compassion--which led him from safety back into the 
burning woods.
  Quentin Rhoades, one of the men he saved, tells how Mackey came down 
the ridge and brought eight firefighters out to a safe area. And then 
he turned back, once again, to save the rest. When he went back 
downhill the second time, the fire caught him.
  ``If he had stayed with us,'' says Rhoades, ``he would have lived.''
  In the coming months, our task will be to do all we can to make sure 
this tragedy is never repeated. After the Mann Gulch fire in 1949 the 
Forest Service reviewed all its firefighting procedures, its training, 
and its technology. It learned some lessons and made some changes. And 
because of that, in all the years between Mann Gulch and Glenwood 
Springs, not one smokejumper died on a fireline.
  It may be that in the coming months, we can learn a new set of 
lessons from the fire at Glenwood Springs. Or perhaps there was nothing 
anyone could have done to avoid it. There will be time to find the 
answers. But today we must join in sympathy and solidarity with the 
families of Don Mackey and all the victims of this fire.
  And we must also join in gratitude to Don Mackey for the lives he 
saved at the price of his own. As the Scripture tells us:

       Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his 
     life for his friends.

  Mr. President, all Montana mourns the loss of Don Mackey. All Montana 
shares his family's grief. But all Montana will remember this great 
hero with gratitude, with love and with pride.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader is recognized.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, was leaders' time reserved?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.

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