Deanne Shulman’s childhood love of nature became a passion for fighting wildfires with the U.S. Forest Service when she was an adult. The work was physically and mentally arduous, but Deanne excelled as a member of wildland crews and hotshot crews, working twenty-four-hour days in extreme heat. “But there was still one dangerous job that she’d never had a chance to try… Smokejumper.” These elite firefighters parachute from planes in order to be the first on the scene of a wildfire. Deanne easily passed the first of the required physical tests, but she reached a stumbling block before the second. At the time, smokejumpers were required to be at least five feet, five inches tall and 130 pounds. Deanne was too small. But she refused to be deterred; she filed a formal complaint based on the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, and within two years, she was allowed to take the tests—and passed. Her efforts led to an adjustment of the size requirements and opened the doors for more women to become smokejumpers. This story of an impressive young woman concludes with a substantial glossary of terms related to the high-interest topic of fighting wildfires. (Ages 5-9)

A lyrical and empowering biography on Deanne Shulman, America's first female smokejumper.

Deanne loved being outdoors.

With her family, she spent summers sailing the Salton Sea and backpacking the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As she grew older, her love of nature only grew. So when the heat rose each fire season and the blazes burned near and far, she noticed. Deanne knew she had to do her part in fighting the fires. She spent years on woodland crews, clearing brush and branches that could make the fire spread, and on hotshot crews where she fought faster fires and took bigger risks, spending weeks in one-hundred-degree heat working twenty-four-hour shifts. But what Deanne really wanted was to be a smokejumper, to jump from planes and parachute into dangerous wildfires that no truck could ever reach. To be the first line of defense. The only problem? There had never been a female smokejumper before.

With lyrical text from Jessica Lawson and striking illustrations from Sarah Gonzales, Ablaze tells the story of Deanne Shulman’s groundbreaking work with the United States Forest Service as she fought against unfair rules and blazed the way for women in firefighting.