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Everybody Has a Story: A foggy recollection of short career at fire lookout tower

The Columbian
Published: March 30, 2011, 12:00am

Back in the late 1980s, my wife, Sally, and I were in Idaho visiting our daughter and family when this crazy idea started to form in my head. Northern Idaho is such a great place, and I thought it would be fun to vacation in one of those forest lookout towers on a remote mountaintop in the area. Our son-in-law worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the Clearwater National Forest, and I could ask him who to talk to, or if it was even possible to rent a lookout.

The following summer, we hit the road in Idaho and were on our way to our lookout tower. We had left our daughter and son-in-law’s place earlier that morning, having stopped by the night before to exchange our car for their four-wheel-drive truck. We had been told the road was rough and it would be a half-day drive to get there. We arrived early in the afternoon, but spotted our home on the very top of the hill miles before we got there.

We parked to start unloading, and Sally went up first. Using the hoist attached to the catwalk that went all the way around the tower, I sent all our gear, including our Coleman ice box, up to Sally, who unloaded it and sent it back down for the next load.

The Forest Service had issued us a two-way radio with fresh batteries, which we were supposed to use in case of an emergency — or to call them if we happened to spot a fire. Little did we know then that the radio would play such an important part in our lives later in the week.

That evening, I made the mistake of asking Sally how she liked our vacation spot. She let me know that being way out in the boonies, where she had to climb a jillion steps to the top of a 70-foot tower, then hike one-third of a mile to get to our water source (a spring), with an outhouse, no place to shower or bathe, and a twin-size bunk, was not her idea of a wonderful spot. However, she did concede that “actually it is a very beautiful place, but please let me pick our next vacation destination.”

We used the bunk to store our gear and put our camping pads on the floor, which gave us ample room and a very firm foundation to sleep on. The wildlife started to make its presence known, and we spotted deer, elk and a coyote or two the next morning. We spent the second day exploring our surroundings and following our many options of which direction to head. All led down — no matter what direction we chose, it was a hike back up to get home! One trail led us through meadows and along meandering streams to an ancient cedar grove. The southern Nez Perce trail was only three miles away. There’s a big meadow on the next hill where we saw elk and deer every evening, and we hiked over there one day.

Lightning strikes

The weather was beautiful the first few days, but toward the end of our week, we could see very ominous black clouds coming our way. A few hours later, strong winds, heavy rain, thunder and lightning hit us all at once. The tower had cables going all the way to the ground, where they were firmly anchored, but the wind was blowing so hard we wondered if the cables would do their job and keep us standing — their slack allowed our little home atop the tower to sway back and forth. That was bad enough, but each time the cable pulled tight, we were jolted right down to our eye teeth. All the time, I was thinking, “People actually pay good money to go on rides like this at Disneyland!” Sally was thinking, “I wish we had gone to Hawaii.”

We had never witnessed lightning strike before. Several times we watched as the lightning hit a tree and the tree exploded into flames. It was raining hard enough to extinguish the flames. The tower came equipped with the “Osborne Fire Finder,” and ours was still intact. That’s a type of alidade used by the fire lookout, and it gives the bearing and horizontal angle in relation to the tower. I recorded each lightning strike that seemed close to us, so the next morning I could view the area and see if a tree was smoldering.

Looking out the next morning, all we could see in the valley before us was smoke. “I have to call this fire in to headquarters right now!” I said. But my wife said, “Let’s listen in on the radio and see if anyone else reports it.”

I waited an hour and then I called. “This is Weitas Butte lookout reporting fire from the lighting storm we had last night,” I said.

“Roger, we will have aircraft over you shortly.” Later, “Weitas Butte, we are circling over you, put us over the smoke you reported.”

“Go due east,” I told them, “the canyon is full of smoke!”

They went and took a look. Then they called again: “Weitas Butte, you are not talking about that ground fog are you?”

Oops! Time for my fire lookout career to end. It sure looked like smoke to me.

We have traveled all over the U.S. since that fateful day and every time I see a campfire or wildfire or smoke from a foundry, my wife always asks: “Are you sure it is not ground fog, dear?”

Everybody Has a Story welcomes nonfiction contributions, 1,000 words maximum, and relevant photographs. Email is the best way to send materials so we don’t have to retype your words or borrow original photos. Send to neighbors@columbian.com or P.O. Box 180, Vancouver WA 98666. Call Scott Hewitt, 360-735-4525, with questions.

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