Past Conferences
This page lists the sessions and links to content from past conferences.
NILC 2025
📖 Conference Booklet: Download the full NILC 2025 Conference Booklet (PDF)
The 2025 National Interdisciplinary Lookout Conference featured a series of panels, presentations, and lectures exploring various aspects of fire lookouts in the human environment. The Theme for the conference was “The Past and Future of Fire Lookouts,” and content focused on exploring the history and the evolving role of fire lookout towers and related issues.
Conference Sessions
Care and maintenance: the Ethics of Lookouts
Chair: Michael Decker
Presentations:
- Jenna Bruggerman: The 5S Organization System
- Ben James: "Sunshine" AKA Filmmaking on Sundance Mountain
- Billy Cooter and Cat House: Preserving Idaho's Fire Lookouts
- Kevin Roach: Timeless Guardians: Human Fire Lookouts
The Memories of Lookouts
Chair: Gary Weber
Presentations:
- Connor Reakes: The Study of a Typological Artefact
- Don Patterson: Tracing Lookouts Past: Fieldwork and Fire in the River of No Return Wilderness
- Clare O'Connel: St. Mary Peak Fire Lookout: A Successful Partnership
Placement, Displacement: Re-negotiating the Places of Lookouts
Chair: Jack Kredell
Presentations:
- Simon Scott: The Unnatural Devolution
- Jacob Riddle: Photogrammetry and Reflections on Resiliency
- Michael Guerin: Red Hill Lookout: California's Most Unique Detection Station Historical, Architectural, and Cultural Context
Re-enacting the Icons
Chair: Hannah Green
Presentations:
- Mark Wetherington: Overexposed: Social Media and Three Fingers Lookout
- Brayden Jones: Wylies Peak: Legend and Successor
- Nancy Hammond: How Mabel Gray Became the First (But Not the Only) Lookout
Policies and Regulations of Fire-fighting: Lookouts and Politics
Chair: Brandon Light w/ Gabriele Orlandi
Presentations:
- Penny Morgan: Fire and Climate: Past, Present, and Future
- Alyssa Kreikemeier: The Cerro Grande Wildfire
- Emily Lane and Nick Koenig: Looking and Building for More Just Futures in the Climate Crisis at the Wildland Urban Interface
Resistance, Resilience, Recovery: the Bones of Lookouts
Chair: Andrea A. Dutto
Presentations:
- Andrew Shearman: Echoes of Fire: Reimagining Lookouts as Sites of Memory and Reflection
- Rick McClure: Planning and Partnership and Plenty of Patience: Historic Preservation and High Rock Lookout
- Leif Haugen: Restoring Fire Lookouts: A Step-by-Step Approach
How to Restore, Establish, and Maintain a Volunteer Lookout Program
Chair: Bill Moore
Presentations:
- Bill Moore: How to Restore, Establish, and Maintain a Volunteer Lookout Program
Fire Lookouts and Research
Presentations:
- Richard Holm: Fire Lookouts and Research
Evolution of a Wilderness Lookout
Presentations:
- Mark Moak: Evolution of a Wilderness Lookout
Future Conferences
This page will be expanded to include sections from future National Interdisciplinary Lookout Conferences as they are held.
Archive
- 2025: First National Interdisciplinary Lookout Conference - University of Idaho
- Future conferences will be listed here