View From the Top  ? Preserving the Nation’s Fire Towers

Once, fire lookout towers symbolized natural resource protection in the United States. In the mid 1900’s, about eight thousand lookout towers housed men and women watching above treetop level for smoke and fires near and far. But technological advances led to the abandonment of most lookout towers in the 1970’s. As Cameron Lawrence reports, there are efforts to preserve the symbols of a fire management era gone by.