Fitness Park to Memorialize Fallen Smokejumper

Howling wind and driving rain did not deter a group of northern California firefighters and volunteers as they began work to develop a physical fitness park being named in honor of a fallen smokejumper. 

Luke Sheehy, a former member of the U. S. Forest Service Redding Smokejumpers and the BLM Diamond Mountain Hotshots, was killed in summer 2013 while fighting a fire in northeast California.

March 5 was the first major workday at the BLM's Swasey Recreation Area, a popular destination for mountain bikers and hikers, to begin developing the Luke Sheehy Memorial Fitness Park. Sheehy, a member of the U. S. Forest Service Redding Smokejumpers, was killed in summer 2013 while fighting a fire in the Warner Mountains of northeast California. Prior to becoming a smokejumper, he served as a member of the BLM Diamond Mountain Hotshots.

Teams working to develop the park included firefighters as well as members of an AmeriCorps crew and students from a Shasta High School Regional Occupation Program. Due to open this summer, the park will feature a dozen workout stations — including pull-ups, sit-ups, and bar dips — adjacent to a hiking and mountain biking trail used frequently by wildland firefighters for physical fitness training.

Volunteers, including AmeriCorps members (orange raingear), work to clear vegetation and smooth the ground for later construction of the Luke Sheehy Memorial Fitness Park. (Photo by Jeff Fontana/BLM)

Tim Bradley, fire management officer for the BLM in Redding, CA, said members of the public will be welcome to use the site to work toward the physical fitness standards required for wildland firefighters.

The fitness park will also include interpretive panels. One will focus on the BLM Firefighter Fitness Challenge and provide information for those who want to achieve those standards. Another will discuss use of prescribed fire, describing several burns that can be seen in the Swasey Recreation Area. And one panel will provide information about Luke Sheehy and his commitment to wildland firefighting and physical fitness.

BLM firefighter Garrett Dunn, left, provides direction as workers excavate an exercise station pad. Dunn, now assistant superintendent for the BLM Diamond Mountain Hotshots, conceived the memorial fitness park idea. (Photo by Jeff Fontana/BLM)

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Story by Samantha Storms, Public Affairs Specialist, BLM California; reprinted from the BLM Daily, March 21, 2016