Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fire towers?

Used to be all over in MS. I remember 3 in the county i live in / grew up in.

MS Forestry Commission has done away with most.

Every work in one?

Still used in your area?

That's cool.

No.

I bet they can be kind of exciting in high winds.

What's the predominant fuel type in Mississippi?


What kinds of trees dominate?

I'm assuming you mean fire lookout towers. Still in use in central ID, sadly they are slowly being replaced by remote cameras most places. I've visited a few, evacuated one, but never worked in one. I've just been responding to what they call in for 16 years. Always thought it might be a cool retirement gig for a summer but they probably will all be unstaffed by then.

Pine trees….


Plantation pines took over of the farm land in central and south MS.

I cam remeber when i was a kid (35 or so years ago) our town had a cotton gin.

At pickin time, every empty lot in town would have trailers parked, waiting to gin.

Then folks figured out theyd be rich in 30 years off pines….

Except, everybody did it.

Now pines arent worth much.

Alot get ground up, trucked to a pellet mill.

Yes.. lookout towers.

Some still exist around here. Foundations are still around. I have a friend who found a book with maps on all the fire towers in WV. He has visited them all.

Googled it, one place said there were 261 in MS.

Thats a avg of 3 per county. Give or take.

https://tnlandforms.us/google.php?trk=gatowers


Georgia's covered up with them.

I know where some are located, but don't know of any still in use. The ones I've hiked to are open to climb part way up, but you can't get into the top level

Guy I visit with bought one.

Not far from the place in north Idaho is one to rent. A pretty spot for sure which ain't hard to find.

Only been in one. Think it was the Walker Mt. lookout north of Chemault Oregon. Pretty cool. They had a cache inside for people to leave mementos. Had just gotten back from someplace in Asia (Hong Kong?) and left some currency.

Goes without saying it had a great view.

Still have a few around. Some are manned during the summer months and others are available for rent if you’re interested in spending a night in one.
Usually if someone is working the summer in one they’re happy to see visitors and will gladly show you around.
Mom has pictures of us when we lived in one during the summer months in the late 60’s near Seeley Lake, Mt

The local wildfire district (Roseburg, Oregon) pioneered the use of cameras as lookouts and are expanding their network and adding FLIR capability at a couple of sites. Lookouts, whether in person or by cameras don't work well when the area is covered in smoke - especially after a lightning storm.

In the 90s we visited the forested area of Australia on the west coast. There, the look out towers are in very large trees that have been topped off. You get to the lookouts by climbing up spikes that are screwed into the tree in a spiral pattern.

Not many being staffed nowadays from what I've seen in the past 5-10 years.

Lots of remote sensing going on, panning cameras on mt tops, along with satellite imagery.

Kind of a bummer for the type of folks that liked that kind of gig, especially if they could get one of the few permanent seasonal positions with the gooberment, that allowed a person to get insurance and pay into retirement. The temporary summer types don't get those benes.

We've got a few marked on the maps around here, haven't visited to see if they're abandoned, remote control, or staffed yet. Might make for a couple of day trips this summer.

Most the Forestry areas are monitored for fire by airplane now.

As the towers were/are removed the .GOV clan auctioned them off.

I bought one when I learned they really didn't get much for bids.

It cost me $50.00 + my disassembling costs.

They come apart pretty easy once you get the roof and walls taken off the top. A day and a half and mine was done.

It was fun but ended up just being a lot of procrastination.
Permitting and insurance effects left it lay stacked for years.

Finally sold it off for scrap. Only lost a couple grand in crane rental fees.

If you'd like to reenact one of my many follies, you start here.

BUY FIRE TOWERS HERE

You could be the first kid on your block to have his own super cool elevated play house.

Had a couple on Mt tops in the St Joe, Calder RD, when I was on trail crew summers of '67 & '68.

One (Huckleberry?) was manned by a couple. The wife had such a sexy voice on the radio, that when she came on, the whole District stopped- maybe other districts around too. If she reported smoke, I'm not sure anyone even went to fight it.