Find a Forest Fire Lookout Tower. In use or abandoned.
Forest fires have been around for a long time shaping the land.
Man showed up and there was a need to find these fires before they became large
and destroyed our natural resources.
Forest Fire Lookout Towers soon followed and are still in use today around the US.
Both state and federally operated they are manned during high fire danger, usually the
spring, summer and fall.
Some states have abandoned lookouts because of the population growth and the
availability of 911 systems, fires were being reported before the lookouts could see
them.
These seasonal lookouts spend the summer scanning the horizon looking for smoke
from manmade fires and lightning strikes.
Find one of these towers and provide a little info to score this cache.
What you need to find:
An actual Fire Tower in use or abandoned
Name of mountain or hill that the tower is on
Name of the tower
Name of State and County the tower is in
Log the Lat & Long, Elevation + Elevation of Tower
Take a picture of the tower with you & your GPS (no web pictures or old vacation
photos will be accepted)
Manned or abandoned (If it's manned try to find out the names of the people manning
the tower)
and as much other history and info that you can find out
Some lookouts are on the National Registry of Historic Places.
check out http://www.firelookout.org/ to look for more info.
The lat & long for this cache is fictitious
Some Interesting tid bits from
http://www.firelookout.com/trivia.html
Tallest lookout tower in the world: Warren Bicentennial Tree Lookout, Australia - 225.7 feet.
Tallest all-steel lookout tower in the world: Beard Tower, 5km SE of Manjimup, W. Australia - 200 feet.
Tallest lookout tower in the U.S.: Woodworth Tower, Alexandria Louisiana - 175 feet.
Highest lookout site in the world: Fairview Peak, 25mi NE of Gunnison Colorado - 13,214 feet.
Lowest lookout sites in the world: Pine Island L.O., Florida & Evans Pines L.O., Florida - 2 feet.
Earliest known fire lookout in the world: Mount Masada, west of the Dead Sea, in present-day Israel, approx. 2,000 years ago. It was built by the evil
King Herod's army in the Holy Land to protect against his enemies who were burning his empire.
State with the most known lookout sites: Idaho (989). 196 of them still exist with roughly 60 staffed each summer.
Number of lookout sites in Alaska: 2! For a state that has huge conflagrations we hear about in the news, this is surprising.
Number of lookout sites in Rhode Island: 10! Amazing how the smallest state had five times as many lookouts as the largest state in the union.
Only state that has never had a lookout: Kansas.
Source: The Lookout Network newsletter & Fire Lookouts Of The Northwest.
PLEASE NOTE: 2-10-05 We are now checking for double finds. If you logged a tower after someone else and we find it, it will be deleted. Please try to find one that has not been logged. Thanks Smokeybear