Fire lookout tower
Towers gained popularity in the early 1900s, and fires were reported using telephones, carrier pigeons and heliographs.
[2] The history of fire lookout towers predates the United States Forest Service, founded in 1905.
Many townships, private lumber companies, and State Forestry organizations operated fire lookout towers on their own accord.
The Great Fire of 1910, also known as the Big Blowup, burned 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km2) through the states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana.
While earlier lookouts used tall trees and high peaks with tents for shelters, by 1911 permanent cabins and cupolas were being constructed on mountaintops.
Beginning in 1910, the New Hampshire Timberlands Owners Association, a fire protection group, was formed and soon after, similar organizations were set up in Maine and Vermont.
[3] In 1933, during the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt formed the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), consisting of young men and veterans of World War I.
The U.S. Forest Service took great advantage of the CCC workforce and initiated a massive program of construction projects, including fire lookout towers.
Fire lookouts were assigned additional duty as Enemy Aircraft Spotters, especially on the West Coast of the United States.
[6] A number of fire lookout tower stations, including many in New York State near the Adirondack Forest Preserve and Catskill Park, have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
While the fire lookout towers remained fully equipped into the Shōwa period, they were later replaced by telephone and radio broadcasting systems in many cities.
Like the United States, fire towers were built across Canada to protect the valuable trees for the forestry industry.
[11] The first fire lookout tower was built to the plans of Forstmeister Walter Seitz between 1890 and 1900, located in the "Muskauer Forst" near Weißwasser.
As wood had been a key building material in Russia for centuries, urban fires were a constant threat to the towns and cities.
To address that issue, in the early 19th century a program was launched to construct fire stations equipped with lookout towers called kalancha, overlooking mostly low-rise quarters.
In some areas, the fire lookout operator often receives hundreds of forest visitors during a weekend and provides a needed “pre-fire suppression” message, supported by handouts from the "Smokey Bear", or "Woodsy Owl" education campaigns.
In some locations around the country, fire lookout towers can be rented by public visitors that obtain a permit.
[15] Starting in 2002, traditional fire watch was replaced by "FireWatch", optical sensors located on old lookout towers or mobile phone masts.
[16] Currently, about 200 of these sensors are installed around Germany, while similar systems have been deployed in other European countries, Mexico, Kazakhstan and the USA.
