View From the Top ? Preserving the Nation’s Fire Towers
Back in the 1900s, the way to spot a forest fire was from a fire tower. The U.S. Forest Service erected thousands of towers throughout the country as part of a national fire lookout system. Each tower had room enough for a man or woman to stay and keep an
Once, fire lookout towers symbolized natural resource protection in the United States. In the mid 1900’s, about eight thousand lookout towers housed men and women watching above treetop level for smoke and fires near and far. But technological advances led to the abandonment of most lookout towers in the 1970’s. As Cameron Lawrence reports, there are efforts to preserve the symbols of a fire management era gone by.