Smokejumper Visitor Center
5765 W Broadway St
Missoula, MT
The country's largest smokejumper base, where you can tour the parachute loft and learn about firefighters who parachute into the backcountry to stop wildfires.
The Smokejumper Visitor Center in Missoula sits beside the Aerial Fire Depot, the base of operations for the U.S. Forest Service smokejumpers, firefighters who parachute into remote country to stop wildfires before they grow. Established in 1940, Missoula has been at the center of smokejumping since the first fire jump that same year, and its base is the largest active smokejumper base in the nation.
The visitor center lets the public into that world. Displays, dioramas, and films explain the training, the gear, and the strategy of aerial firefighting, and when crews are available, guided tours lead through the parachute loft where jumpers sew, pack, and repair their own chutes. It is a rare look at a demanding job most people only glimpse in fire-season headlines.
What Guests Love
- Guided tours through the actual parachute loft where jumpers rig and repair their gear
- Dioramas, videos, and displays that explain how a fire jump works
- The chance to talk with staff who know the world of wildland firefighting
- A restored 1930s fire lookout tower on the grounds
Worth Knowing
- The center is seasonal, generally open in summer, and free to visit
- Guided tours run on a schedule and depend on crew availability, since this is a working base
- It is an active operations center, so parts of the site are off limits and jumpers may be busy
- Summer is fire season, which is exactly when the base is most alive and most in demand
Details
Missoula, MT
Learn about Smokejumper Visitor Center
Firefighting from the sky
Smokejumping was born of a hard problem: in the vast forests of the northern Rockies, many fires start far from any road, and the fastest way to reach them is from the air. Beginning in 1940, the Forest Service trained crews to parachute in with tools and supplies, hit a fire while it is still small, and often hike out afterward. Missoula's first fire jump came that founding year, and the practice has been refined ever since.
The work is physical and precise. Jumpers must read wind and terrain, land safely in rough country, and then do the exhausting labor of digging line and felling trees, sometimes for days, before packing out heavy gear. The visitor center's exhibits walk through that sequence, from the jump to the mop-up.
Inside the base
The heart of the tour is the parachute loft, a working space where jumpers rig, inspect, and repair the parachutes their lives depend on. Guided visits also cover the training facilities and the culture of a crew that lives and works together through the fire season, giving a sense of the discipline behind the daring.
The base sits at the Aerial Fire Depot by the Missoula airport, the largest active smokejumper base in the country, so a visit here is a visit to the real thing rather than a museum standing in for one. A restored fire lookout tower on the grounds, first built in the 1930s, adds a piece of the wider story of how the Forest Service has watched for fire.
Missoula and the forests it protects
Missoula is a river-and-mountain town where the Clark Fork gathers several valleys together, home to the University of Montana and a strong outdoor culture. It sits at the doorstep of enormous public forests and wilderness, the Bitterroot, the Rattlesnake, and the great roadless country beyond, the very landscapes smokejumpers are trained to defend.
Fire is part of these forests, and the base's work reflects a long, evolving relationship with it. Summer, when the center is open, is also fire season, so a visit lands you in the middle of the story rather than at a safe remove from it.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
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