I graduated from college in the winter of '87 and abruptly found myself at loose ends. I had a degree in political science and a vague notion of law school, but I wanted a break. I could do my McJob for a while, but I also wanted to get out of Dodge.
A friend of mine told me about fire lookouts. In those days, the Forest Service would hire people to man lookout towers during the season. After looking into it, I applied and eventually got an offer to man a tower in the Six Rivers National Forest from May through October. I'd be paid an hourly rate for twelve-hour days, seven days a week. Six Rivers is in the far north of California. I drove up a couple of weeks early, did my training, and before I knew it, found myself hiking up to my tower.
My tower was a three story "windmill" type. I could park at the base of the mountain, but all supplies had to be carried up, a mile and a half of narrow, broken trail. I had a small propane ring for cooking. The radios were powered by batteries that had to be lugged down the hill to charge and then humped back up. The tower was on the highest peak for miles around and utterly exposed to the constant biting wind. The observation cab had spectacular views.
It was, by turns, boring, exhilarating, uncomfortable, pleasant, intense, and laid-back.
At first, as a newbie, I sucked. But my boss, Tony, encouraged me.
"Look," he said, "maybe this is a one-time thing or maybe you'll catch the Forest Service bug. Some people really dig the independence. Tell you what works to get comfortable, though. Work with dispatch every day. There are campfires in all the regular sites. Practice by calling those in. Don't worry if you call in a few water dogs." A water dog is a column of vapor that looks like a fire.
So I did. Every morning I'd sight a few campfires. I'd swing the old Osborne Fire Finder around, working to triangulate the location, estimate the wind velocity and size. Then I'd get on the radio to dispatch.
There was a crew of folks on the radio, but primarily it was two women, Maia and Claire. They were old hands. Claire was annoyed by my "antics", calling down the campfires, but Maia was always helpful. She'd tell me how close I was and my comfort level rose.
Once, the smoke seemed dark and thick out of one of the camps, so I called it in.
"Aren't you done training yet, mayfly?" It was Claire today. "Mayfly" was her term for someone who'd be gone at season's end.
"I am, but this looks like maybe they've got out of control," I called back.
When I called in the noon weather report, it was Maia.
"Good thing you called in this morning," she said, after dutifully taking down the temperature and wind velocity. "Some kids built a huge bonfire. Greg said it could have been ugly."
After that it was quiet a long while. I made friends with two scrub jays. I'd throw them peanuts on the rail and they'd swoop in and scold one-another. I slowly learned the whole of my terrain view. The demonstration forest, with its thick mantle of redwoods and doug fir. The fire breaks and the trails.
Once a week I'd go down and fill the back of my old Chevy Citation with groceries and books. I'd stop into headquarters to check mail and get a real shower, then drive out to the bigger store. Then it was back in the dark, hiking up my hill. The next day I'd spend doing little thirty-minute breaks sprinting down to the car and then hiking back with a full pack.
The first visitor I had was an older guy.
"Hallo the tower!" he called as he puffed up the trail from the parking site. He had thin gray hair and had clearly been in the sun too much in his youth. He had a bottle of George Dickel in his haversack, next to a quart of water.
He seemed harmless, so I invited him up. He surveyed the cab, which was, luckily, shipshape and tidy today.
"I worked this lookout thirty years ago, before going on to CalFire," he told me. "Not much has changed!" He trailed his fingers on the old locator.
We enjoyed a happy hour before he strolled back down the hill.
My second visitor was Claire. It was a Tuesday, the day after a store run, and about mid-morning I was caught up enough that I could walk down and get the first load of groceries. As I was shouldering my pack, a mint green Forest Service pickup rumbled up the road and parked next to my beat-up Chevy.
Claire was decked out in full ranger uniform, gold badge and brass nameplate carefully lined up. She was maybe forty, her thin, straggly brown hair had a few threads of grey. She kept it pulled back severely in a ponytail under her hat. She was trim and tan under her khaki shirt and brown pants, with a perpetual scowl hiding tobacco-stained teeth.
"Whatcha doin' out of position, mayfly?" she barked.
"Retrieving supplies. I'm on a thirty," I said, meaning a thirty-minute break. "Carry some goods up? It'll save me a trip."
She peered into the back of my car, grabbed some bags, and off we went. At the tower, I climbed directly back to the cab, called in, and started scanning again.
Claire poked around a bit.
'What is she doing? Checking for contraband?' I thought.
She finally ascended to the observation area, looking around at how I had things.
"You seem to have settled in fine, mayfly," she admitted. "I brought some lunch."
She had two hero sandwiches and a pair of lukewarm sodas. As we unwrapped them, I addressed her presence: "So, did Tony send you to check up on me?" I tried to make it sound friendly.
"Nah, but I like to put a face to the voice. And I want to know what sort of person it is on the other side. It's early now, but later in the season, things can get hectic. The difference between a false alarm and the real deal can mean having a crew in the right place at the right time or wasting everyone's time. You called in that one..."
"I thought it was a good call?"
"Turned out, it was. Not only that, you didn't wait to call it. Point to you." The soda tasted a bit better.
She busied herself about the place, then went out to inspect the perimeter. Around four o'clock she climbed back into the tower.
"I could head back," she said, "unless you want some company tonight?"
That made me put the binos down and glance over. The smokey bear hat was downstairs somewhere and she'd let her stringy hair down. Was this a test? Or was she serious? The radio interrupted.
