Last remaining survivor of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in Montana. Sallee was a 17-year-old smokejumper when he and 14 other smokejumpers parachuted into Mann Gulch that started on August 5, 1949 and lasted for five days. A few minutes later, a 'blow-up' caused the fire to grow by 3,000 acres, killing 12 of the smokejumpers and one other firefighter. Sallee survived along with two other smokejumpers, Robert Wagner Dodge (who died in 1955 from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) and Walter B. Rumsey (who died in a plane crash in 1980). The story of the fire and Sallee's survival was described in Norman Maclean's book "Young Men and Fire" (1992).
Last remaining survivor of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in Montana. Sallee was a 17-year-old smokejumper when he and 14 other smokejumpers parachuted into Mann Gulch that started on August 5, 1949 and lasted for five days. A few minutes later, a 'blow-up' caused the fire to grow by 3,000 acres, killing 12 of the smokejumpers and one other firefighter. Sallee survived along with two other smokejumpers, Robert Wagner Dodge (who died in 1955 from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) and Walter B. Rumsey (who died in a plane crash in 1980). The story of the fire and Sallee's survival was described in Norman Maclean's book "Young Men and Fire" (1992).
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