Why Lookouts are still needed and why some areas are cutting them

PLEASE NOTE:All opinions expressed on this page are my own and in no way, shape are form are to be interpreted as reflecting the views or opinions of any governmental agency or employee(s) --Forest Service or otherwise!!

Okay, what is bothering me is that every time I see anything about fire lookouts in books, newspapers, magazinesor on the television it is almost always accompanied by the following type of quote:"...nowadays fire lookouts are all but an obsolete method of fire detection as air patrols and satellites have proven to be more efficient means of fire detecting". What upsets me about quotes like this is 1)they are many times made by the very same people who love fire lookouts and wish their legacy to continue and 2)it is for many regions a false statement. The fact of the matter is that in regions of the west where forest fires burn frequently and hot(Eastern and SW Oregon, most of Arizona and New Mexico, certain areas of Idaho, Montana and Eastern Washington, Northern California forest managers maintain a strong network of fire lookouts and will, in my opinion, continue doing so for many years to come. The reason for this is simple: Satellites as an effective means of fire detection is a complete myth and planes have limitations. SATELLITES Ha!Ha!Ha! Someday some mad cackling scientist will declare "It's alive!" and in a fiery spray of liquid nitrogen launch a satellite system that will replace both planes and lookouts in their fire detection roles, but that day is NOT here and probably won't be for a number of decades to come. In the meantime, anyone who claims satellites are effective at detecting fires in the critical period (ie when the fire is still small) are reading too many science fiction novels. AIRPATROLS If my understanding is correct airpatrols have all but replaced lookouts in the Eastern U.S and many volunteers have stepped up to fill the void(dare I say "Black Hole") left by the government's failure to provide funding for lookouts. I have very little confidence as to the accuracy of this. I have no clue as to the fire frequencies, locations, topographies, fire politics etc. in the eastern U.S. so I won't comment on it. If anyone can give me education on the role of fire lookoutsin the east please do so. In the meantime keep in mind that this rhetorical rampage concerns lookouts of the Western United States. But back to the matter at hand! AIRPATROLS are an essential part of good fire detection and in some circumstances can run circles around lookouts, literally. All lookouts have areas which are hidden to them("Blind Spots") and often times these areas can be quite large. Patrol planes are ideal for peering into even the smallest topographical nooks and crannies and picking off small fires which would be hidden for a lookout. The weakness of patrol planes is that, as their name suggests, they must PATROL and in doing so leave large areas of land unnattended for extended periods of time. Like a policeman on patrol in a bad neighborhood, any one block may be safe as long as the officer of the peace is on it, but as soon as he moves two blocks to the west whoa Nelly!, you'd better bar the door 'cause that's probably the exact moment Neighbor Bob gets alcohol delirium tremens and stumbles out into the street with the rocket launcher he purchased via an internet auction site looking to wax some of those purple man-sized cockroaches he's been seeing. In many places of the Western U.S. the window of opportunity for effective fire suppression is extremely small, and if it is not immediately detected and responded to you can kiss rangeland, forestland or even entire suburbs goodbye. The advantage of fire lookouts is that they are fixed-detection and the lookout on duty watches large areas of land not for ten or fifteen minutes at a time like a patrol plane, but all day long and you can be guaranteed that if that lookout is worth his or her salt any fire in their "seen area" will be caught when it's still no bigger than any of those man-sized cockroaches Bob is after. So why have land managers in many areas cut lookout funding? Answers:FIRE THREAT, LET BURN POLICY, IGNORANCE, CELL PHONES, LACK OF INTERAGENCY COORDINATION Let's begin with... FIRE THREAT Some forested areas of the the Western U.S. just don't burn very often and when they do the fires aren't very large or destructive. Serious fire threat simply doesn't exist and the fact that so many lookouts were built in these areas in the first place was due due to overzealous fire managers with monster governmental budgets. It doesn't pay, goes this argument, to place lookouts in areas that have 100+ year fire cycles. Therefore many managers in these areas have opted to fly planes during the few fire critical hours in the afternoon and, if fire conditions get extreme, staff emergency lookouts and boost frequency of detection flights. CELL PHONES As areas of the west rapidly fill up with people the forests do as well. Since cell phones are becoming increasingly popular many forests have begun to rely on "Joe Public" to report fires(via his cell phone) and this in turn gives them a chance to cut funding to lookouts. In some areas(Southern California in particular) this strategy may work, but I fear that many forests have compromised the timeliness of their fire detection in relying on reports from the public. The Siskiyou National Forest, I believe, deserves special mention as a forest that has unwisely cut its lookout staffing using this type of logic as an excuse. The fact remains that campers with cell phones cannot replace lookouts in most areas. The Deschutes NF is an excellent example of this: The Deschutes NF embraces some of the most populated and recreated forest lands in Oregon and encompasses a number of population centers including the city of Bend. Yet their 6 staffed lookouts consistently beat the public to the punch when it comes to fire reporting--oftentimes when those fires originate in the city limits of Bend itself! If Joe Public can't prove himself against the lookouts in this area than I'm highly sceptical that there are many areas of the west where he can! Granted, there are some areas in which the public does report the large majority of forest fires(oftentimes because the region maintains a poor lookout detection sytem to begin with...), but even if a lookout system only manages to get first report on 10-15% of the fires in their region I believe they are earning their keep(remember, a single 300 acre forest fire in the west can cost over $1,000,000 in supperession costs not to mention the resources lost). The "cell phone" argument simply appears to be a case of a forest trading great fire detection(lookouts) for average fire detection(public). You get what you pay for(or what you DON'T pay for as the case may be...). LET BURN The "Let burn" policy is beginning to grip many regions. Although fuel loading and volatility and urban interface prevent many areas from implementing let burnprograms, some National Forests(particularly those with large Wilderness areas) are beginning to realize that fire is good and it's best to let the fires burn and cleanse the forest as they have for eons. This policy can tend to create a much more casual and passive stance towards forest fires. Fire detection budgets, both fixed and aerial, may potentially get hashed in this type of environment. A let burn policy,however, doesn't simply mean turning one's back on a fire and giving it complete free reign. Forest health and public relations are very important considerations in any good let burn program and fire managers carefully monitor these fires to ensure that the objectives of the program are being met and the fire will not cause environmental and/or political problems. It is for this reason that fire managers who cut lookout funding because of the let burn policy may indeed be doing themselves a great diservice! Monitoring and surveillance of any fire, regardless of whether it is "let burn" or not, is a critical part of good fire management and lookouts are an invaluable surveillance/monitoring resource. IGNORANCE Yup, good plain ol' ignorance. There exists a belief in certain fire circles that aerial fire detection is a cheaper alternative to fire lookouts. When the fire budget is being allocated at the start of fire season the argument usually goes something like this:"Hey, look, rather that staff five lookouts we can opt for aerial detection and look how much money we save!" So the lookout gets cut. Problem is that many of the fire managers that make this decision never realize that the trade of five lookouts for aerial detection does save them a gob of money but they get poorer overall fire detection as a result. As the old adage goes "You get what you pay for" and I'm afraid many fire managers never have nor ever will realize this. "Cost Effectiveness" is the key word here and I have yet to see any studies that soundly demonstrate airpatrols provide more EFFECTIVE protection for less COST than fire lookouts. Some fire managers need to realize that while in many areas airplanes are an essential resource for good fire detection, they cannot, dollar for dollar, completely replace fire lookouts. That is why in areas where fire is a serious threat and fire managers take that threat seriously a combination of airplanes and lookouts is used. That is why there are 91 staffed lookouts in the state of Oregon alone and why, incidently, Oregon has some of the best fire detection anywhere in the world. That is why lookouts are still used in Brazil, Australia, Canada and many other areas around the world. That is why 9 new lookouts have been constructed in Oregon in less than a decade. LACK OF INTERAGENCY COORDINATIONFires know no political boundaries and neither do fire lookouts. Sometimes a good lookout gets cut not because it fails to turn in fires, but because it is unlucky enough to be located near the borders of several different ranger districts or forest agencies. Unfortunately, not enough forestry agencies have cooperative agreements under which the funding of a tower can be divided up between them. As a result, nobody is able or willing to fund the tower on their own and the funding gets cut. Cooperative agreements do and can work and it's a shame that more forest managers don't take the initiative to hammer them out. The last decade has seen a renewed and vigorous enthusiasm for protecting and preserving lookouts for recreational and cultural reasons. I'm 100% for it and have been ecstatic to see old or abondoned lookouts get new life blood via volunteer organizations and rental programs. But I feel it important to realize that lookouts are not only important parts of our cultural heritage, but that they are also the heart and soul of fire detection systems in many places nationally and globally. I don't believe that this simple fact gets acknowledged enough and would hope that we in the fire fighting community make note of it the next time the reporter from the local newspaper decides to do a special interest column on fire lookouts. Then, perhaps, the article won't begin: "...nowadays fire lookouts are all but an obsolete method of fire detection as air patrols and satellites have proven to be more efficient means of fire detecting"