On Aug. 4, 1961, the U.S. Forest Service in Missoula dropped 20 of its most elite smokejumpers near a wildfire burning on a mountain ridge in the Idaho wilderness. What
“If this airplane could talk the stories she could tell …” As families climbed aboard the shiny silver bird, sat in its cockpit and admired its red-tipped propellers and frisky Miss Montana logo, author and pilot Bryan Douglass recounted the DC-3’s resurrection to a rapt audience seated in a hangar at the Polson airport.