810-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 19,1985
Watching tor ikes from tourers
is a
BY MERCER CROSS
National Geographic News
Service
LICK KNOB, W. Va. - Life in a
fire tower isn’t recommended for
the fainthearted or the sociable.
But it seems to agree with
Lawrence (Bud) Harris, who’s
been manning the 50-foot tower
atop this 3,250-foot ridge for the
past 12 years. The ridge is in the
heart of the coal country of
southern West Virginia.
Thp wind in these Appalachian
Mountains is never still.
Sometimes it blows 30, 40, or 50
miles an hour. That’s when Bud
Harris, whose weather-reddened
face shows every one of his 63
years, hangs on for dear life as he
clambers up the 74 steps to his
glassed-in aerie.
“When that wind blows, it’ll
rattle that tower,” he says. “After
I get up there, I don’t pay any
attention to that wind. Sometimes I
can’t hear my radio. That’s about
the only time it bothers me.”
Snowstorms and Lightning
Weather can be a problem for
Harris. He remembers the
December storm a few years ago
when a bulldozer had to rescue him
fiom waist-deep snow after his
food ran low.
Another time, violent lightning
drove him out of the seven-foot
square tower into the two-room
cinderblock cabin at its base. A
lightning bolt knocked out his
telephone and radio scanner and
flicked a knob off his stove.
Harris’ two-way radios and his
telephone are his only links to .the
outside world. When he spots a
“smoke,” he confers by radio with
other towers in the region. Using a
sighting device mounted on the
circular relief map in the center of
their tower shacks, he and the
sms 1
BLACK
PldK
iBUOW
BLUE
BfcOWM
is/s - this birpisnnoujn
AS A UJRDIN&SIRD MO 19
CLOSELY RELATED TO IRE
HERON. THE SCARLET IBIS
/S FOUND IN TROPICAL
AMERICA UJH/LE THEM HITS
IBIS IS COMMON! Y POUND
IN THE SOUTHERN PARTQF
THE UNITED STATES. THE
SACRED IBIS OF EGYPT
UtAS WORSHIPPED BY THE
EGYPTIANS PHD EMBALM
ED AFTER DEATH.
way of life
lonely
other lookouts get a fix on the fire’s
exact location. Then they notify
state forest rangers, who put it out.
Days go by without any human
contact. Harris’ only company is a
fat ground squirrel that lives in the
rocks of the summit. He has oc
casional nocturnal visits from a
black bear seeking food, as
evidenced by tracks around the
cabin.
Early in the morning and again
in the evening, after he’s left the
tower for the day, Harris sits in the
cabin and converses with CB
friends he wouldn’t know if he met
them on the street. They’re his
surrogate family while he’s on the
mountain.
The man he sees most often is
Bentley Hartley, a forest ranger
from nearby Pax, a 34-year
veteran whose proudest possession
is a national award for his fire
prevention work.
When Harris’ food and cigarettes
run low, he notifies Hartley, who
picks up Harris’ order at a store in
Oak Hill and delivers it in his four
wheel-drive pickup.
Harris’ time on the mountain is
shorter than it used to be. While he
once ascended the knob for the
entire fire season, three months in
the spring and three in the fall,
budget cuts have reduced the time
to the six-week peak of each
season.
“When it gets too green to burn
in the spring and when-it gets too
cold in the winter, I’m anxious to
get off of here,” he says. In the
summer, he mows his neighbors’
lawns in Oak Hill. “In the winter,”
he says, “I don’t do nothin’.”
And in a few years, he may do
even less. Bud Harris and his
fellow fire lookouts, in West
PBACH
GREEK!
LT.BROWM
LT. BUIE
LT.GR6EN
6 •
7.
8.
9.
10.
Shorter Stays
on Knob
High above Lick Knob in southern West Virginia, fire lookout Lawrence (Bud) Harris uses
a sighting device attached to a stationary circular map in his 50-foot tower to pinpoint
the location of a “smoke" on the horizon. Harris, who's been in his solitary part-time
occupation for the past 12 years, is one of a declining number of firewatchers nation
wide. They’re being phased out by airplanes, advances in technology and budget cuts
Virginia and around the country,
are an endangered species
The reasons are numerous:
aerial surveillance, sometimes
utilizing infrared sensors; im
proved radio communications;
better access to wilderness areas,
with more reliance on the public
for reporting fires; increasing use
of unmanned, sophisticated sen
sing devices on the ground.
And tight budgets. Eight years
ago, says Ralph P. Glover Jr.,
deputy state forester, West
Virginia had about 50 operational
fire towers. Now it has 23.
In the budget of the Department
of Natural Resources, the first
item to be trimmed is fire
prevention and the second is fire
detection, Glover says. “Reducing
fire occurence,” he says, “is
what’s suffered a major setback, I
think.”
m.
Louisiana Has Tallest
Louisiana claims the nation’s
highest tower, a 175-foot giant near
Woodworth. Anyone with the nerve
to climb to the top earns a
“towernaut” certificate.
The U.S. Forest Service began
using lookouts in the early 1900 s,
and their use peaked in the 19505,
says John W. Chambers, assistant
director of aviation and fire
management for the Forest Ser
vice.
In 1953 the Forest Service had
more than 1,800 towers nationwide.
That number has declined to 922, of
which only 381 are in use.
Although the need for towers has
lessened and many old towers
require expensive repairs,
Chambers says, lookouts provide
&■}
\\v
/o-/o-3s
both 24-hour surveillance and,
“very often, a valuable com
munciation link that you don’t
have if the lookout isn’t there.”
Old towers have nostalgia value.
Glover says about six West
Virginia towers have been sold. In
Boise, Idaho, the Forest service
plans to use one as a museum at
the Interagency Fire Center, says
Arnold Hartigan, a center
spokesman.
David B. Butts of the National
Park'-Service in Boise wistfully
noted the “significant attrition” of
towers in the mountains of the
West. He laments their loss in part
because of their value as contact
points for park visitors.
“It’s the passing of an era, I
guess,” he says.