Source: The National Smokejumper Association
Not long after
the end of World War 1 in 1918, the Chief Forester for the U.S. Forest Service,
Henry S. Graves, contacted the Chief of the Army Air Service--later known
as the Army Air Corps--inquiring about the possibility of cooperating with
the Forest Service for the purpose of providing aerial fire detection over
some of the forests of the Western States.