Southwest Oregon’s Siskiyou Smokejumper Base is where wildfire fighters once parachuted out of airplanes into blazing forests. The legendary smokejumpers launched experimental operations in the 1940s that continue to serve a role in modern firefighting. Historians consider the Cave Junction base the most authentic World War II-era smokejumper museum in the country. …Still in place are the dispatch radio, Motorola intercom and rotary phone that alerted firefighters to board two 1940s Beechcraft jumper planes, which are still on the runway. The U.S. Forest Service’s first smokejumper bases were built in 1943 in Idaho and Oregon to rapidly drop specially trained firefighters into remote areas. Some of the crew had never flown in a plane until they were taught how to jump out of one. After completing their initial attack and when ground crews arrived, smokejumpers would carry out their gear, which weighed more than 120 pounds, for miles to the pick-up location.