Old fire lookout towers find renewed purpose

GUEST OPINION

There’s a small wooden cabin at the top of Northwest Peak, a few miles from Montana’s borders with Idaho and Canada, and Chuck Manning, 79, believes lookouts like this one deserve a second chance at being useful.

The fire lookout sits at about 7,700 feet above sea level and seems to be in good condition despite being abandoned since 1955, when the Forest Service last staffed the outpost.

Manning leads the Northwest Montana Lookout Association, a nonprofit group that supports government agencies in restoring and maintaining lookout towers around Kootenai and Flathead national forests.

The Forest Service began building fire-detection towers after the Great Fire of 1910, then added more after the Civilian Conservation Corps and other government agencies considered lookouts—particularly in the West—as New Deal investments.

The result: State and federal workers built close to 8,800 lookouts throughout all 50 states. But by 2024, only about three in 10 lookouts remained standing. Roughly 6,200 were burned, collapsed from neglect or became scrap wood.

Why did the towers—and their ever-vigilant occupants—lose their fire-spotting role? Mark Hufstetler is an architectural historian who works for the Forest Service as a fire lookout at Baptiste Lookout, near Hungry Horse, Montana. He said the use of fire lookouts started declining after World War II partly because of the widespread introduction of two-way radios. They improved the range and speed of the Forest Service’s ability to respond to fires.

The more important reason, Hufstetler said, was the development of aviation aircraft as fire spotters. “And as the decades progressed, that became more and more common.”

But Hufstetler, who has staffed several different lookout locations in the last seven years, believes a network of human watchers is still a vital asset.

'I interact with visitors and provide them with probably the most positive experience that they will have with any federal agency personnel,” Hufstetler said. 'People are always in a great mood, and we can transmit that enthusiasm into an understanding of what the agency does.”

Hufstetler believes versatility is an even more fundamental value of human lookouts.

In the past five months, Hufstetler was able to relay information about a missing hiker, and in a separate incident, a missing person, to state authorities within seconds.

'I’ve got my radio with me at all times; it’s on all night,” Hufstetler said. “So I’m always available if things happen.”

As longer and more devastating wildfires seasons continue to challenge firefighters across remote areas of the Rocky Mountains, Hufstetler said his vantage point also offers an important perspective when crews fight wildland fires near his tower.

'The key to being a good lookout is to have an intimate knowledge of where you are and why things are happening the way that they are,” he said.

To preserve and protect lookout towers, some agencies have turned to renting out the historic structures to campers. In Montana, it’s become such a popular program that a reservation is needed as much as six months in advance.

'It’s not a normal place to go to get away from things and live on the top of a mountain.

Nobody else is around except birds and wildlife,” Manning said. 'That’s their home. You’re basically planting yourself into an environment where nature calls the shots.”

Manning said he doesn’t have to worry about whether the next generation will continue the work of maintaining these historical structures: “There will always be people with a passion for lookouts,” Manning said, as he drove back toward Kalispell from Northwest Peak. He trusts that others will fall in love with these historic outposts, just as he did.

'There’s nothing greater than having a cup of coffee on any of the lookouts that we’re repairing,” Manning said, “while watching the sunrise or the sunset.”

Short lookout stays are managed by the Forest Service through the lookout rental program. You can learn more about fire lookout preservation through the Forest Fire Lookout Association or the Northwest Montana Lookout Association.

ZEKE LLOYD IS A CONTRIBUTOR TO WRITERS ON THE RANGE, WRITERSONTHERANGE.ORG. AN INDEPENDENT NONPROFIT DEDICATED TO SPURRING LIVELY CONVERSATION ABOUT WESTERN ISSUES. HE WRITES IN HELENA, MONTANA.