You've heard the argument against skydiving: Why jump out of a perfectly good plane?
Now consider what it is like to jump out of said plane, only to face a wildfire burning below. This is the work of the smokejumper, still a job title in a world of helicopters, air tankers, drones, and other aerial firefighting tools.
Murry Taylor, a Scott Valley resident, spent decades "eating smoke," a story he tells in the book Jumping Fire.
And he's our guest in this month's Stories of Southern Oregon, curated by Maureen Flanagan Battistella.
Murry and Maureen join us for a tale of a truly hard job.