A rare inside look at the thrilling world of smokejumpers, the airborne firefighters who parachute into the most remote and rugged areas of the United States, confronting the growing threat of nature’s blazes.
Forest and wildland fires are growing larger, more numerous, and deadlier every year — record drought conditions, decades of forestry mismanagement, and the increasing encroachment of residential housing into the wilderness have combined to create a powder keg that threatens millions of acres and thousands of lives every year. One select group of men and women are part of America's front-line defense: smokejumpers. The smokejumper program operates through both the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Though they are tremendously skilled and only highly experienced and able wildland firefighters are accepted into the training program, being a smokejumper remains an art that can only be learned on the job. Forest fires often behave in unpredictable ways: spreading almost instantaneously, shooting downhill behind a stiff tailwind, or even flowing like a liquid. In this extraordinarily rare memoir by an active-duty jumper, Jason Ramos takes readers into his exhilarating and dangerous world, explores smokejumping’s remarkable history, and explains why their services are more essential than ever before.

Smokejumper: A Memoir by One of America's Most Select Airborne Firefighters

Arts & Photography

Jason A. Ramos

Julian Smith

History & Criticism

Mariner Books

Nevil Shute

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Twayne Publrs, US

Chaplin (Columbus Filmmakers)

Columbus Books Ltd

Frommer's ® Portland Day By Day

Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, John

An elite crew of firefighters employed by the Department of the Interior, smokejumpers are specially trained to fight monstrous fires in the deepest wilderness at a moment's notice-- in inaccessible terrain where conventional firefighting is impossible. Highly trained, they parachute from helicopters into the heart of the combustion. In this exciting memoir, Jason A. Ramos reveals what it takes to do this remarkable job, recounting his career from his humble beginnings as a seventeen-year-old city kid working for the Riverside County Fire Department to becoming one of the top smokejumpers in the world, a position he's held for twenty-five years.

Science & Math

Earth Sciences

HarperCollins Publishers and Blackstone Audio

Moon Handbooks Ecuador: Including the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador Handbook, 1st ed)

Travel

Central America

Avalon Travel Pub

From historic Williamsburg to the Blue Ridge Mountains, this guide takes travelers to Virginia's best sites. Each part of Virginia features completely different surroundings, from the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains to the amazing Dixie Caverns just west of Salem. The Chesapeake Bay provides sailors and fishermen with endless opportunities, while the Shenandoah Valley and Appalachian Mountains entice visitors by their beauty alone. In addition, this guide takes an extensive look at our nation's capital and the many opportunities it affords travelers. Author and outdoor enthusiast Julian Smith also provides extensive coverage of the recreational activities available in Virginia, leading travelers to the best vacation possible.

Moon Handbooks Virginia: Including Chesapeake Bay, Shenandoah Valley, Blue Ridge Mountains, and Washington D.C. (Virginia Handbook, 1st ed)

Avalon Travel Publishing

Showcasing the design of Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg (PFS), a leading Canadian planning, urban design and landscape architecture firm, this comprehensive, thought-provoking and visually stunning book consists of seven commissioned essays by foremost architects, planners, landscape architects and historians working today. Michael Van Valkenburgh introduces the book with a compelling Foreword, and each author, including Bruce Kuwabara, Ken Greenberg, Doug Paterson, Julian Smith, Eduard Koegel, Jacqueline Hucker and Kelty McKinnon, touches on provocative conceptual approaches to design that PFS takes within their practice. From Contemporary Urbanism, Dynamic Process, Cultural Landscapes, Super Natural, Contemporary Commemoration, Global Flows to Bodily Places, each essay theme covers and explores different PFS projects from Sherbourne Park in Toronto, to Confederation Square in Ottawa, from Vimy Memorial Restoration in France to Huang Pu in China. An interview by the three founding partners of PFS, Chris Phillips, Marta Farevaag and Greg Smallenberg, forms a binding thread that holds the book together.

Grounded: The Works of Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg

Ken Greenberg

Bruce Kuwabara

Doug Paterson

Jacqueline Hucker

Eduard Koegel

Kelty McKinnon

Architecture

Simply Read Books

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Books by Julian Smith