Title screen: Patrick McMarron, “There are things to be said about a human being being here.” Hell’s Half Acre, Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, Idaho-Montana Border
[video depicts older man sitting in chair in an fire lookout tower with windows behind him]
Interviewer: So one of the things that we’re interested in, in this project that we’re doing, is the increasing obsolescence of the fire tower.
Patrick McMarron: [laughing] Oh, you better not get me started.
Interviewer: Ah, yeah, so if you could just talk a little bit about that…
PM: Yeah, well, obviously, as far as technological advancement goes, I’m at the sticks of rock stage. But you know, this is as a, these have a huge historical significance. And I’m talking some of the stuff they tell people in St. Mary, these, this is probably the first lockout here was probably in the 30s. There’s what I would call a rag top, there was no, there was no lockout, the is post here, maybe a tree, and the guy lived in the tent. And then from there, it escalate in the 30s. There were about 50 lookouts in Ravalli county in the Bitterroot National Forests, it gave a lot of people jobs. And yeah, just be redundant. But there is, there are things to be said about a human being being here. You know, yeah, you can set up the machinery and you can monitor the weather and the winds and everything else, but just walk around the catwalk every 15 minutes or so you see things that you know, when you’re here long enough, there’s a difference. You can tell. Also on these steep canyons, especially here, it’s just Canyon Country, the fire crews and they’re working on a fire down here and have to stay overnight on it, they can’t radio out, they can radio hear, but they can’t radio, they can’t reach dispatch. So the lookouts are all relaying messages that can get really critical, that can be you know a life or death situation. And there are a lot of just little, you know, things I know we’re in the modern age, the whole management of the Forest Service is changing to, you know, new people who don’t really understand the significance of having to pack all your supplies in a mule train this, this is a little different here, you can drive here, but there are quite a few lookouts that are still pack in. So, and also, you know, financially, you know, what does it cost to pay a lookout for the season? Probably what it costs an hour for the helicopter. You know what it costs in a day for the aerial reconnaissance. And there are aerial reconnaissance when its clear enough to see in fire season, and they go along between the lookouts and radio each lookout and we radio back what to look at, what to look for what we saw. So, if a sermon is [laughing]
