There's little doubt I'm practicing a vocation in its twilight.

October 14, 2016 10:39 PM

Reflections on ten years working as a fire lookout:

My lookout tower is situated five miles from the nearest road, on a ten-thousand-foot peak in the Gila National Forest. I live here for several months each year, without electricity or running water. Although tens of thousands of acres are touched by fire here every year, I can go weeks without seeing a twist of smoke. During these lulls I simply watch and wait, my eyes becoming ever more intimate with an ecological transition zone encompassing dry grasslands, piñon-juniper foothills, ponderosa parkland, and spruce-fir high country.

--A Talent for Sloth
posted by MoonOrb (29 comments total)

I tried, over several long and futile summers, to get our local fire lookouts interested in helping me produce a philosophically-oriented public radio piece, and this is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to create. I'm very glad someone managed to get it down. (Better luck in New Mexico, I guess.) Thanks for sharing!
posted by mykescipark at 11:04 PM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

I listened to the memoir he wrote about being a lookout on audiobook, it definitely was the writings of someone with a lot of time to think about life.
posted by greatalleycat at 11:04 PM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, his book, Fire Season, is really fascinating and lovely and I enjoyed the heck out of reading it, definitely recommend!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:11 PM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Over time I began to take delight in this peculiar feature of my job—that my success was measured by how rarely people noticed what I did. I was barely noticed at all.

This about his job as a copy editor at the Wall Street Journal. Not being noticed is often high praise for the light crew for a play, for example, where you are best when you deeply enhance the play, as an accompanist brings out the soul of a vocalist. But shouldn't an editor's work be praised?

Just a side note, as one interested in this field. The article was great, and if you were reminded of the similarly dwindling job of lighthouse keepers, you are not alone.
posted by kozad at 11:23 PM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is one of those jobs, like lighthouse keeper, which will be made obsolete by technology. Now that ships do their navigation by GPS, lighthouses really aren't necessary.

And scanning for fires is done by satellite now.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:53 PM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Chocolate Pickle: Now that ships do their navigation by GPS, lighthouses really aren't necessary.

Why Are Lighthouses Still a Thing?

“If the government didn’t feel that they were still needed to some degree for navigation, they would just turn them all off and save some money,” said Jeremy D'Entremont, a maritime historian and author who has researched American lighthouses for more than 30 years.

“Most of them are still considered what’s called ‘active aids for navigation,'" he said. "Some of them have been turned off, but it’s a minority.”

D'Entremont estimated 60 to 70 percent of the country’s 800 or so lighthouses are still active today (numbers are hard to nail down because lighthouses are divided among private owners, nonprofits, and the government). In New England alone, where D'Entremont has more of an expertise, he said there are 170 lighthouses and 140 of those are still active.

Are Lighthouses Still Functional?

The use of warning lights to indicate navigational hazards is very important, and it is one reason why lighthouses continue to survive. Although most sailors use complex electronic systems to pinpoint their position within feet (or meters), a lighthouse can be a helpful reminder of dangerous waters and, in the event that an electronic navigation system fails, a lighthouse can save lives by alerting sailors to rocks, shoals, and other dangers.

Pilots of small aircraft also use lighthouses, especially distinctive ones. They can act as a landmark or frame of reference when a pilot does not use electronic guidance systems. In this way, it serves the same purpose as it does for sailors, as the ground can be confusing when seen from the air.

With automation, however, lighthouse keeper has in fact become an extinct profession, at least in the U.S.
posted by Spinda at 12:21 AM on October 15, 2016 [10 favorites]

I don't know much about fire spotters, we don't have them in Australia (in as much it is the duty of all to report a sighting), but lighthouses are very, very useful to the many boaters besides the merchant marine. While a freighter may be sophisticatedly equipped, a pleasure craft benefits enormously from the warning lights, from a local buoy to a massive lighthouse, like many things, the simple, failsafe of low tech is eminently useful.
posted by bystander at 12:32 AM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

We actually did have them in Australia for a period of time, bystander. The view from the jimna tower was superb.
posted by smoke at 1:13 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

And scanning for fires is done by satellite now.

Increasingly, yeah - the geostationary satellite Himawari-8 which covers Australia and returns active fire hotspots every 10 minutes is incredible. But it's no use when it's cloudy. But there is a pile of technology coming along. At a recent wildland fire conference I attended there were two automatic fire detection systems on display, one relying on heat detection, the other able to detect smoke plumes by their motion (and differentiate them from, say, vapour plumes from factories). I recently reviewed a paper that described a mesh work of tiny, cheap smoke detectors that could be distributed throughout a forest.
posted by Jimbob at 3:01 AM on October 15, 2016 [11 favorites]

Firespotting towers have only very recently been decommissioned in Aus, I applied for a summer job as one not so very long ago.

Pedantically, I'm pretty much 100% sure his claim about the Gila being the first place reserved from logging in the world is wrong. Apart from Yellowstone, there were several parks created before the 1920s in Australia, which explicitly banned timber harvesting.

Anyway, lovely piece of writing.
posted by wilful at 3:30 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

I hiked Mt. Granite and at the top was one of those which I broke into. It was thousands of feet above the tree-line.
Mr Connnors seems quixotic more than adventuresome.

"Ten years as a lookout on a fire tower requires a particular aptitude for idleness."

OK, you say so.
posted by vapidave at 3:49 AM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here's a job for last summer, near Bendigo.
posted by wilful at 4:53 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

I didn't know it was even a thing until I read Desolation Angels. The lighthouse keeper comparison is a good one. Soon, there'll be no professions left for the gentle loner.
posted by kersplunk at 7:05 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Long live the Gila! Awesome article. Thanks, MoonOrb.
posted by strelitzia at 9:14 AM on October 15, 2016

Here's a job for last summer, near Bendigo.

Somehow I feel uneasy about being isolated in the wilderness near "Bendigo"
posted by clockzero at 10:09 AM on October 15, 2016

Nice read; not sure why my affinity for this has not, so far, translated into sufficient interest in actually playing Firewatch (which I bought on impulse).
posted by progosk at 10:14 AM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fun fact: in the US, a number of the fire watch towers (now unused) are open to the public.

Isle Royale (off the coast of the UP of Michigan) has one you can easily climb up into (and when I was there, it appeared someone had made it their campsite, although that's probably frowned upon).

Squaw Mountain, in Colorado, has a fire tower that you can book to sleep in for a couple of nights. It's supposed to be superbly beautiful.
posted by Adamsmasher at 10:19 AM on October 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

My friend Mark does this up in the Flathead wilderness for a few weeks every summer. I don't know if/where he put any musings about this year's season but his photos from up there have been phenomenal as well.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:29 AM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can't decide if I would love this or hate this type of job. I love the wilderness, I've lived alone most of my adult life and I'm generally comfortable with solitude. And I'm really good at being slothful! But that is a long time to be away from people. I wonder how it affects them mentally.
posted by AFABulous at 11:00 AM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well in Desolation Angels you can see Kerouac starting to lose it after a month or two, although I'd say that was at least 75% lack of wine.
posted by kersplunk at 12:36 PM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'd expect it is more difficult than one had imagined, for many people. That's a lot of solitude.
posted by thelonius at 12:46 PM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

progosk, I thought Firewatch was a great game. Short but really compelling, with very memorable characters and some really moving moments. It's stuck with me, kind of a like a good short story (which is more or less what it is). In fact, I don't think I would have had an interest in the post if I hadn't played it.
posted by treepour at 1:10 PM on October 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sloth? I wonder. If you are sitting in a high tower on top of a high peak, you are going to have a very long, steep hike to get water. Especially in the very dry Gila Wilderness. It's going to be hot during the day and chilly at night so you are going to be cutting and carrying a lot of firewood. Housekeeping with no running water is a pain and a lot more work. Your standards of cleanliness are probably going to go downhill over a summer. It does sound appealing but it doesn't sound easy.
posted by Bee'sWing at 1:14 PM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think it was the first designated wilderness area in the world. Other earlier parks were not to be held in a primal state but were instead to be developed and exploited.
posted by wobumingbai at 7:25 PM on October 15, 2016

The election thread(s) are making me suspect I could truly enjoy this job.
posted by jferg at 7:45 PM on October 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

My whole life is a journey toward a tiny off-grid home in the deep Southwestern desert. You wouldn't have to pay me to do this. It would be ecstasy.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:08 PM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm in a similar boat: transitioning to a small, self-sufficient home in the forests of the Northeast. Being of a disposition towards solitude myself, I enjoy reading experiences like these.

Along similar lines is Sylvain Tesson's The Consolations of the Forest, which I recommend for midwinter reading (preferably beside a fire and with a bottle of vodka handy).
posted by ragtag at 10:23 AM on October 16, 2016

Folks in the Denver area have a readily-accessible fire lookout still in operation and open to visitors: the Devil's Head Fire Lookout, an easy* day hike within a little more than an hour's drive. Forest Service veteran Bill Ellis has been working the lookout for over three decades (I assume he's still there - he was two years ago when my friend & I climbed up), and will show you how to use an Osbourne Firefinder if it's not too busy.

*ok, easy except for the final flights of stairs
posted by deludingmyself at 2:45 PM on October 16, 2016

Brutal job. My guess is he was on duty during the Whitewater Baldy Complex, which destroyed over 450 sqmi of the Gila and is officially the biggest fire in New Mexico history.

Thank you for your service, Philip. Thanks for keeping me and mine safe.
posted by endotoxin at 11:15 AM on October 17, 2016