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The People Who Protect Us From Wildfire: Old And New School Strategies

KNAU/Melissa Sevigny

Wildland firefighters use every strategy they can to stop forest fires from causing catastrophic destruction. Increasingly, crews across the country are relying on high-tech equipment, like infrared cameras, iPads and satellite imagery. But, machines can't replace humans completely. In this 2-part story, we hear from some of the people who choreograph fighting a fire. 

An incoming call lights up a computer screen at the U.S. Forest Service dispatch center in Flagstaff. Maggie Roberts hits a button to reply to field crews. Behind her are giant maps of the Coconino National Forest. One shows fire lookout towers. Another has magnets for every fire engine and crew member. "As they move and change locations," Roberts says, "we change the magnet. That way we know where people are."

Credit KNAU/Melissa Sevigny
Fire engine and crew monitoring board at the U.S. Forest Service dispatch center, Flagstaff, AZ

JeffWalther, dispatch center manager, calls it an "old school way of doing things". He wants the Coconino to modernize its firefighting technology with high-tech fire-spotting cameras, as some national forests have recently adopted. "They make cameras nowadays that you can get range finders on them, heat, infrared detection," Walther says. "They're pretty amazing."

He points to a pilot program at the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. The Forest Service there has deployed six cameras to spot and monitor wildfires. Michael Johnston heads-up the project. "Instead of having to fly a helicopter out into the wilderness area to monitor a fire, or put two individuals out in grizzly bear country to monitor that fire, we can do it with a camera," Johnston says. It's about reducing risk. Cameras let firefighters check out the scene before going in themselves. And they're cheaper than keeping lookouts on the payroll, Johnston says. "Those systems actually automatically detect the smoke through the software on the camera. One dispatcher could be monitoring 10 or 20 cameras."

That's what's happening in southern Oregon, where a network of nearly 40 cameras has replaced human fire lookouts. Some of those cameras use infrared to detect fires people can't see. Johnston believes there are a lot of benefits to using the cameras, but he adds, "It's a big change for the Forest Service. I think the lookouts are kind of the national symbol for the Forest Service."

Credit KNAU/Melissa Sevigny
A view of the Cowboy Fire, south of Flagstaff, AZ

Andrew Hostad is a fire prevention officer for the Coconino. Today, he's driving on a dirt road, patrolling the forest with iPad. It's got electronic versions of the maps in the dispatch center. He can pinpoint the locations of fires and find the quickest route there. On his iPad screen Hostad notes, "You can see the smoke rising right there from the Cowboy (Fire)". It's burning south of Flagstaff. A nearby lookout called in the smoke. Hostad admits a camera could spot smoke just as well, but he doesn't think technology can replace actual human lookouts. "They're a lot more than just the eyes and ears for detecting wildfires," he says. "They let us know where people are camping at and potential things to watch out for." They pass on vital information - about a big storm rolling in, for example, or a group of campers near a lightning strike. They also act as relays for fire crews on the ground, especially in rough terrain where radio communication is difficult. Hostad believes, "That's one thing where...you can't talk to a camera." And, he points to the symbolic value of lookouts. When hikers make it to mountaintops with historic lookout towers, they want to find a person there. 

Credit KNAU/Aaron Granillo
Ed Piper, fire lookout at Turkey Butte Tower, uses a 1937 compass to spot wildfires

  If you hike to the top of Turkey Butte, near Sedona, that's where you'll find long-time fire lookout Ed Piper. Inside his 14'x14' steel tower, he's got a collection of crucial fire-spotting tools, including scopes, radios and Piper's most important piece of equipment: a giant compass in the middle of the room. It's been there since the tower was built in 1937. Piper uses it every time he sees smoke. "You just site it like a rifle," he says. You see a smoke out there, and you peek through here, and you line it up with that cross hair. Then you look down here, and it'll give you the number of degrees. 

Piper's been spotting fires on the Coconino National Forest for over a decade, but he does a lot more than just call them in. He works in tandem with forest managers to protect hikers and wildland firefighters. During the Slide Fire two years ago, Piper warned crews about smaller fires that jumped the main line. "Those people need to know that they have spot fire out there," he says, "because you don't want to put those firefighters in danger of being overrun by fire. Those are the situations that you lose lives".

Local fire managers say they couldn't do their jobs without lookouts like Ed Piper. They're, generally, the first line of defense in fighting wildfire. "That trained human eye is just invaluable," says Matt Engbring, fire prevention lead on the Coconino. He says a lot of people call in smoke, but not with the speed and precision of an experienced lookout. "Really good ones can actually distinguish the difference between a campfire and an actual wildfire," says Engbring, "by the timing of when the smoke's coming up, the volume of smoke, the color of the smoke. They have that intimate knowledge of what's going on."

Credit KNAU
Hotshot crews assess the 2014 Slide Fire in Oak Creek Canyon, AZ

Lookouts have been keeping watch over U.S. forests since the early 1900's. Some of the towers were even used during World War II so the army could scout for enemy planes. That's also when the door opened for women to become lookouts, as many men were overseas fighting. It was a job some people thought women were incapable of because they couldn't handle the solitude. Jean Rukkila laughs at that notion. She spent more than 20 seasons as a fire lookout in Arizona. "I have people that used to say, how can you stand it?" Rukkila says. "And, I would say, how can you stand living in the city, making left hand turns in 5 o'clock traffic, and looking at billboards?"

Rukkila started the job in the late 1970's. She says gender has always been irrelevant for fire lookouts - it's really about stewardship of the land. "It's one of the most open-handed workplaces I've had the pleasure to be in," Rukkila says, "in all kinds of ways - not just male or female - but straight, gay, old, young. It's can you do the job? Or are you going to give up in the middle of things or not? That's really more about it."

Credit Jean Rukkila
Long-time Arizona fire lookout, Jean Rukkila

Even so, the number of fire lookouts has dropped drastically in recent years. There used to be about 8,000 towers in the U.S. Today, there are fewer than 2,000 - less than half of which are staffed. Budget cuts and technological advances are encroaching on one of the most iconic jobs in the West. 

Melissa joined KNAU's team in 2015 to report on science, health, and the environment. Her work has appeared nationally on NPR and been featured on Science Friday. She grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where she fell in love with the ecology and geology of the Sonoran desert.