Office with a View...... Firetower

[3930dave]

Fire lookouts: The US Forest Service lookouts watching for fires

I'm a fan of simple+reliable technology..... that Osborne Fire Finder sounds like it would come through a Carrington Event just fine.....

Rgds, D.

 

[ericm979]

There's not a lot of lookouts left, and fewer that are actually manned. Fire cams are replacing them and overall they do a much better job. And you can watch them yourself. Last year when the dry lighting storms went through there was a fire ignited not far from me. I could see on the cam that it wasn't going anywhere, which was a huge relief.

ALERT Wildfire

www.alertwildfire.org

When I was a fire fighter decades ago it was hard to man the towers we had on the forest. Some went empty. Not many people want to be up there for long. You can't go anywhere when you're on duty. It gets boring. As a result we had some tower operators who we all knew were drunks but pretended we didn't know, because they were the only people who would do it.

 

[tallyho8]

My second cousin was a lookout in a tower on top of Pilot Mountain in Johnson County Arkansas back in the 1950s. There was a small cabin on the premises where his family lived. We visited in 1951 when I was 6 years old and all climbed up the tower stairs to the top and I was thrilled with the view. The next time I went there was in 1972 and the tower was deserted and the house was gone. We climbed up there again, swatting at the wasps who made the tower stairs home and I was just as intrigued by the view as I was at 6 years old. I could have stayed there all day scoping the area out with my binoculars if my wife hadn't gotten hungry and we had to leave.

I went back a few years later and the tower was gone. I felt like a 6 year old that never got any presents for Christmas. Sadly we left the area, never to return. I wonder if there are any more towers left that accept visitors or if the insurance regulations now forbid it.

 

[ericm979]

A number of towers have been preserved or resurrected by volunteers, which is nice. And there are some you can stay in! Lookout Rentals

 

[3930dave]

Like lighthouses, many of these will be gone/closed soon enough, so enjoy them while you can.....

Pre-Covid, many might have judged somebody wanting to do this job as at least Slightly Off.....

Years back, I used to do mega road time, for a decent job that I really liked. But, even then, that 5 minute "commute" would have been attractive, let alone now.....

Unfortunately, we have plenty of somewhat high-functioning substance abusers in "normal" (high-density) life...... being old-school, the Darwinian aspect of fire-tower ladders means that most low-functioning drunks wouldn't survive the first climb.

Carrington - apparently we almost had one again in 2012, just missing by 9 days. I'm no astronomer, but I suspect that in celestial terms, that's similar to slamming your brakes on while driving, and stopping 2" from somebody's bumper.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

A number of towers have been preserved or resurrected by volunteers, which is nice. And there are some you can stay in! Lookout Rentals

That would be a cool place to stay.

Not happening for us though.... better-half doesn't like going near a 2-step stool...

Rgds, D.

 

[k0ua]

The next Carrington event is coming. It is only a matter of when, not if.

 

[3930dave]

The next Carrington event is coming. It is only a matter of when, not if.

Isn't there An App for That ? (Big Wink).

Roger That...... it won't be pretty...... fire-towers and many other fully mechanical things (pulled out of museums, grandpa's drive-shed) will suddenly get real popular....

Rgds, D.

 

[ericm979]

The manned fire tower depends on radio communications to relay information and coordinates to fire dispatch, who sends the fire crews. Wouldn't a Carrington event interfere with radios?

 

[ponytug]

Flags, sephamore flashing lights. The Romans managed it, so it ought to be possible... I mean we are all current on our sephamore ratings, right?

All the best,

Peter

 

[3930dave]

The manned fire tower depends on radio communications to relay information and coordinates to fire dispatch, who sends the fire crews. Wouldn't a Carrington event interfere with radios?

Yep.

Military should have hardened gear, so worst case the Guard and our Reserves may be on-air during that scale of emergency. I don't know modern EMS radio gear well, but my guess is it's not as rad-hard as the best MIL gear.

A lot of the grid will be down, many cell towers don't have much backup power anyway, and I'd expect major Internet outages.

Not just for Carrington - Morse via light, semaphore etc comes up in articles here and there - I get the impression that there is still some military training done even today...... Plan D, E, and F......

My comments may look a little weird in a fire tower thread (or maybe just weird in all threads ), but when you think about how much trouble recent wildfires have been.... and that's with most normal comm systems available/functioning.....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Flags, sephamore flashing lights. The Romans managed it, so it ought to be possible... I mean we are all current on our sephamore ratings, right?

All the best,

Peter

Beat me to it

First step will be treating a major segment of the population for shock, due to blank phone screens !

Rgds, D.

 

[dodge man]

I had to look up Carrington Event, never heard of it, basically a solar storm. I am a retired land surveyor and first started using GPS in the early to mid 90’s. The solar storms go in cycles and at that time the solar flares were fairly active. The equipment was also a lot more sensitive to it. Now it seems to be less of an issue but I’m sure a big one would mess it up.

 

[bunyip]

I remember the fire towers and the poor sods who were in them for months without a break, solar power was in its infancy and generators a a huge bank of batteries were required, supplies were dropped off once a fortnight and often that was the only human contact, during the holiday season they would get visitors who came for a look, took a special introvert to tolerate the solace.
I worked out of an office that had the big map on the wall to triangulate the smoke sightings, each tower was marked and had a red string that pulled out of the map to a compass point, this applied to all the towers in the region and where they all crossed was the source of the smoke, towers were up to 100km apart and not all could see the smoke, we had about 10 towers to cover the region, some were on top of towers while others were on top of a bare hill with clear vision at least 180 degrees, the towers were 360 degrees.
Haven't been up there since the late 80's and have no idea if they still exist.

 

[3930dave]

I had to look up Carrington Event, never heard of it, basically a solar storm. I am a retired land surveyor and first started using GPS in the early to mid 90’s. The solar storms go in cycles and at that time the solar flares were fairly active. The equipment was also a lot more sensitive to it. Now it seems to be less of an issue but I’m sure a big one would mess it up.

On the "upside" of that...... satellites have to be designed to deal with solar radiation in general, but at the minimum, there would be disruption with this scale of event Up There too.....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

I remember the fire towers and the poor sods who were in them for months without a break, solar power was in its infancy and generators a a huge bank of batteries were required, supplies were dropped off once a fortnight and often that was the only human contact, during the holiday season they would get visitors who came for a look, took a special introvert to tolerate the solace.
I worked out of an office that had the big map on the wall to triangulate the smoke sightings, each tower was marked and had a red string that pulled out of the map to a compass point, this applied to all the towers in the region and where they all crossed was the source of the smoke, towers were up to 100km apart and not all could see the smoke, we had about 10 towers to cover the region, some were on top of towers while others were on top of a bare hill with clear vision at least 180 degrees, the towers were 360 degrees.
Haven't been up there since the late 80's and have no idea if they still exist.

Very interesting post.

Caught me somewhat by surprise...... I've seen you make an occasional comment relating to your Practice, so was a bit surprised by this part of your personal history. Shows to Go Ya, you learn much (sometimes what you wouldn't expect) talking to folks...esp. when Listening . (It could have been an unrelated govt dept, in the building you worked in at the time.....).

Abnormal jobs...... or even, more "normal" jobs..... does the person choose the job, or does the Job choose Them ?

One of my favourite Youtubers is Itchy Boots. A young Dutch woman, roaming the world on a motorcycle. A geologist by training, she is not only totally comfortable roaming very remote areas on her own, she clearly was born to do it. Guts, Brains, and Heart - off the scale.....

Some more conventional jobs are very isolated, long-haul trucking for one..... you'd see some people at truck stops, but crossing your Outback, I'd expect to see mostly just 'roos and other wildlife... I'd find that drive interesting, but many wouldn't.....

Rgds, D.

 

[bunyip]

i worked for parks, conservation etc briefly, spent my time at the edge of fires trauma debriefing and selecting staff who could take the pressure, also educating on how to cope with stress.
Didn't really enjoy it and went back to forensics after a couple of years but it was an eye opener.
Also got to pack my 5 piece fly rod and extract a few lively trout that had never seen a fly before, stepped on a few unhappy snakes as well, I don't eat fish so it was all catch and release, same for the snakes.

 

[Jchonline]

The next Carrington event is coming. It is only a matter of when, not if.

One in 2012 just missed us....maybe we will get a reprieve for the next 50 years or so. Can you imagine how much it will disrupt at that point!

 

[3930dave]

i worked for parks, conservation etc briefly, spent my time at the edge of fires trauma debriefing and selecting staff who could take the pressure, also educating on how to cope with stress.
Didn't really enjoy it and went back to forensics after a couple of years but it was an eye opener.
Also got to pack my 5 piece fly rod and extract a few lively trout that had never seen a fly before, stepped on a few unhappy snakes as well, I don't eat fish so it was all catch and release, same for the snakes.

That makes sense now.

PTSD is a public term now, but still takes an extreme toll on many.

Remote areas aren't for everyone, esp. for extended time periods...

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

One in 2012 just missed us....maybe we will get a reprieve for the next 50 years or so. Can you imagine how much it will disrupt at that point!

People seem pretty Borg-like now..... given The Sky is Falling reactions in this era to minor Twitter and Facebook interruptions

Yowza.....

Rgds, D.