Lookouts
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When you've got hurricanes pestering you every year, why not make the best of it? The Bahamas is giving the idea a good try.
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| Hurricane, Bahamas 1898-99 Winslow Homer |
In 1910, catastrophic forest fires burned millions of acres in Idaho and Montana In response, the Forest Service built a nationwide network of fire lookouts. They helped to scan the horizon for lightning strikes and conduct regular weather monitoring to gauge fire conditions.
At one time, there were as many as 5,000 lookouts across the U.S.. Today there are fewer than 400, most of them replaced by airplane and satellite spotters. Some people, like Ray Kresik, at his fire lookout museum in Spokane, Washington lament this change, and hope to keep the memory and the tradition, alive.
"The first lookouts for forestry purposes were simultaneously built in Maine and Idaho. At headquarters, Idaho, there was a tree in 1902 that the camp cook at a timber camp was told to go up and sit in for an hour every afternoon and if she spotted smoke, climb down, get on her donkey, and go and tell the crew.
"Goals that we're aiming at is trying to put some integrity back into the fact that lookouts can still be a very valuable asset for fire detection. The lookout is the eyes that can see it twenty-four hours a day".
Thanks today to Jeff Rice of Boise, Idaho. The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. We are funded by the National Science Foundation. For more on lookout towers, forest fires and weather, visit our website at weathernotebook.org.