My first season as a fire lookout
Summary
My first season as a fire lookout was very different than I expected.
My expectation came from reading Jack Kerouac's novel, The Dharma Bums, and he describes being a lookout as a very solitary, contemplative existence, but it's really not very quiet and not very contemplative.
When you're in the tower, there's constant radio traffic. In fact, my supervisor told me if the radio is silent for more than five minutes, check to make sure that you haven't accidentally turned off the volume.
The surprising thing about the job is that it isn't solitary, you're on a team, and you have a particular role to play, particular duties, and other people on your team are relying on you. They expect you to perform competently and reliably. You're treated like a professional.
It's nice to be working with others towards a mission that has a service element to it, and it feels like something meaningful.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Where is the tower?
A: 5,200 feet elevation just west of Sequoia National Park. It's right at the transition between oak woodlands and conifer forests. The view to the west is of the foothills and the central valley. The view's north, east, and south are of forests and mountains.
Q: How often do you work?
A: I usually work about one weekend a month, usually a three-day shift.
Q: How much training did you receive?
A: There's two days of classroom training and two days of training in the lookout tower.
Q: Is it a volunteer position?
A: Yes. The organization that I volunteer with has an arrangement with the Forest Service that we provide staffing, and they provide some infrastructure like bringing water to the tower.
Q: Do you have to hike to the tower, or is there a road?
A: There's a dirt Forest Service road about a 30-minute drive from a major highway.
Q: Did you see any fires?
A: Yes, in my first season I saw multiple fires, and this was kind of a surprise. But during the summer in California, small blazes pop up frequently. Usually they're near residential areas since most fires are started by people. They're often along roads because somebody throws a cigarette out of their window, or they have a chain dragging from a trailer that causes sparks. Often these fires are reported by other drivers or local residents, and the fire crews are often on their way to the scene before the smoke even rises high enough in the air to be visible by me in the tower.
There was one very large fire this summer, the Garnet fire, almost 60,000 acres. It burned for several weeks, and it started just a few miles from the tower, and we had an amazing view of its progression as it moved north away from us.
Q: Do you sleep in the tower?
A: Yes, that's an option. There's a small bed and a little propane stove and a little solar-powered refrigerator, so one can stay there comfortably, or you can camp out in a tent down at the base. There's water, but it's not potable. You have to bring your own drinking water. There's an outhouse.
Q: Do you get any visitors?
A: Not too often, because it's on a dead-end road, and it's not on the way to any tourist destinations. But occasionally people who hear about the lookout will drive up to check out the view. Maybe one or two people a day. On a busy weekend, you might get half a dozen.
Q: What are your responsibilities?
A: The obvious job is to watch for smoke from fires, and we're supposed to take a scan of the landscape every 15 minutes to look for smoke. In addition, we keep a log of weather, because temperature and humidity contribute to conditions that promote wildfires. We're constantly monitoring radio traffic, as we need to be abreast of where different crews are in the field, and what people are doing. We may be called upon to facilitate communication between the crews that are in the field, and other crews or the dispatcher, because they may be down in the canyon, and their radios don't reach out to the repeater towers, but they might be able to reach us, so we transfer messages between crews and the dispatcher. A big part of our time is spent learning the landscape and the terrain. There's over 150 named landmarks visible from the tower, and we're expected to learn as many of them as we can. So when we spot a smoke, we can quickly call in its location providing a geographical name, in addition to the compass bearing and distance. So I spend a lot of time with binoculars and a map, just learning the details of the landscape, to learn the names of hills, creeks, and roads and to learn the locations of settlements and ranches. Then we're also educators. We're the public face of the Forest Service for visitors who come to the tower. We try to inform them about the role that towers play in forest protection.
Q: I thought all the towers were gone now and that the forest service uses satellites.
A: Satellites and cameras are an important part of fire detection, but humans are still the most reliable form of detection because humans can tell the difference between smoke and a cloud of dust rising from a logging truck or a mist rising from a meadow after a rain. These these subtle differences are very important. They distinguish real smoke that requires a response from similar but harmless types of cloud formations.
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