KEEPING WATCH

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;24;11

[Betsy] The very best storm that I have ever been in. Most of the storms around here track kind of up from the south, they might come a little bit from the southeast or a little bit from the southwest. But out of the south. And one afternoon in August, there was just this wall of black, out to the west and just boiling over toward me.

00;00;24;11 - 00;00;57;00

[Betsy] And you could see like it was blocking out all the light because it was in the west and the sun was over there. And just you could see in the, you know, kind of like what should have still been broad daylight, lightning just dropping out of this thing all the way across, you know, like as it came across both the Payette and the and the Nez and like Oregon Butte got lit up and then it came across Dixie, and then it came across Boston Mountain and, as you know, crossed Bargemen and that it’s right there like it is just it and it’s a shelf cloud.

00;00;57;00 - 00;01;15;02

[Betsy] So it was all squared off at the leading edge because it was just moving so fast. And I like that thing. And I’m sitting on my lightning stool in the middle of the lookout like that thing is below the elevation of this mountain that’s going to have to either like that’s just going to have to lift up to get over here.

00;01;15;02 - 00;01;52;10

[Betsy] And so it did when the wall of air in front of that cloud finally hit Sheep Hill, it just boiled up and over me. This cloud just kind of like washed all around me and still dropping lightning. And there was just enormous hail like, you know, like dime size or a little bit bigger hail and still lightning, you know, just going on all around me and the lookout either got hit or came, you know, like splash over from a strike that was right nearby.

00;01;52;10 - 00;02;06;25

[Betsy] And it was crazy. It was so awesome. Just like being literally in the middle of the storm for however long it took. Felt like a while. It was probably like 15 minutes or something like that, that I was just like, Whoo hoo hoo!

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:39:26

[Michael] So as we move away from fire lookouts, they kind of become, you know, obsolete in a way as new technology is implemented. Do you feel like that transition away from the human staffed fire lookout. Do you feel like anything is lost in that transition?

[Betsy] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for one, it’s usually cheaper to staff a lookout for the summer than it is to put an aerial resource up.

00:00:39:28 - 00:01:16:18

[Betsy] Um, whenever you’ve had a lightning bust. So that’s kind of a thing. Um, that it’s a, uh, it’s a shift in, um, how budgets can be, you know, kind of sold, I guess, um. And it also you lose all of that human como, um, between the person who’s there all of the time versus the people, maybe the resources who just responded to a fire or some jumpers who are from this forest, who got chucked out, and they need an idea of how to hike out best.

00:01:16:21 - 00:01:41:04

[Betsy] You know, and you can give them real time on the ground experience of where, you know, knowledge of where they should maybe head. Um, that weather watching, uh, you know, the fact that the cameras in particular, you know, will catch smoke and they’re getting better at it, but generally it’s not nearly as little smoke as the lookouts going to notice, um, in their day of watching out there.

00:01:41:04 - 00:02:05:10

[Betsy] And, uh, you wind up with bigger fires generally before the cameras pick them up than the human would, because it takes kind of a lot of smoke. Like if it’s if it’s at the time when, uh, when to look at when a camera can see it, it’s usually beyond a spot, unless it’s in some really unusual timber or something like that.

00:02:05:12 - 00:02:28:18

[Betsy] Yeah. And also lookouts track the lightning where it came in the first place. So, you know, like you’re looking for smoke to arise for weeks afterward in these spots that lightning hit. So you just kind of have a little bit of advance knowledge on things. I think that loses a lot. [Michael] So thinking about the spaces that fire towers around.

00:02:28:22 - 00:03:00:29

[Michael] Do you think there’s a relationship between the fire lookout and wilderness?

[Betsy] Um. Ask that again. Sorry.

[Michael] Yeah. Um, do you think that the. The concept of wilderness in Idaho as a as a wild space that sort of as free from human interference as possible. Do you think that there’s any sort of relationship between the reality of wilderness and what the fire lookout is?

00:03:01:02 - 00:03:29:22

[Betsy] Sure. Like just a, uh, a disconnect between the two things or connect either way.

[Michael] Um, yeah.

[Betsy] Um, well, the first thing comes to mind is like, you know, um, here in Idaho, we have the largest, you know, we have the Frank Church and then the 50 yard corridor between it with the Magruder road, you know, um, and then the Selway-Bitterroot and then the, uh, what you call it, Gospel Hump is just right there.

00:03:29:22 - 00:04:00:24

[Betsy] Off to the side, separated by a few dozen miles. Um, but all of those have airstrips grandfathered into them, right? So. And private inholdings that are still in the centers of them. And so as far as like humans and structures on the ground that, um, don’t fit the wilderness. Um, uh, you know, structure as it’s written and everything like that.

00:04:00:26 - 00:04:31:02

[Betsy] There are already a lot of exceptions here, but I think they’re a little more truthful maybe than, um. I don’t know. I think humans, humans kind of should be out there a little bit. Humans would be out there if we hadn’t chased the Tukuaduka out of, you know, out of out of, uh, the church and, um, blah, blah, blah. You know, the, the, the history there is that people were on the ground, you know, since the late 1800s, to which in Idaho terms is ancient history.

00:04:31:05 - 00:05:11:28

[Betsy] Um, look out started being up there in the early 1900s. So as far as West Coast history, they kind of belong, um, and uh, but yeah, they’re, they’re an exception. You know, my, um, all of my lookouts had, uh, solar panels, so I, you know, I had propane stove, propane or solar fridge. Um, I had, uh, the ability to hook, um, my iPod and my coffee grinder into, into the battery bank and, uh, you know, and kind of live it up.

00:05:11:28 - 00:05:38:14

[Betsy] I had ice cubes at most of my lookouts because, again, the, you know, the refrigeration that I had available to myself, um, that’s kind of crazy. And totally different. And, you know, of course, what it was for decades and decades and decades, I had enough, um, just enough phone service that I could text and even make phone calls, you know, to the outside, uh, friends and family, instead of just being confined to the radio or the crank telephone.

00:05:38:17 - 00:06:02:26

[Betsy] Um, so it’s, it’s, it’s a whole different deal than it used to be, but I think it still just kind of fits. The other thing as well here, Krassel only has Sheepeater left as a lookout. I mean, The Payette only has Sheepeater left as a wilderness lookout. Um, Salmon-Challis has a couple. Uh, I guess the Clear-Nez has a few.

00:06:02:26 - 00:06:22:26

[Betsy] Right. Kind of sprinkled in. Um, but so many more of them are more front country lookouts or outside of the wilderness, um, than we used to be. I guess. I really wandered around a lot there. I’m not sure I answered any kind of question, but it was kind of funny question too, and I didn’t know where to go with it, so. [Laughter]