How to Spot a Wildfire: Weighing Fire Lookouts and Technology

Key Facts

Climate|America’s Fire Spotters Aren’t Ready to Fade Away Just Yet https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/climate/wildfire-lookouts-fire-towers.html Leif Haugen with his morning coffee at the Thoma lookout post in the Flathead National Forest, Mont.
Leif Haugen with his morning coffee at the Thoma lookout post in the Flathead National Forest, Mont.Credit...
- Published Sept. 6, 2023Updated Sept. 14, 2023 If, on a hot, dry day a fire should break out within a certain 300,000-acre patch of northwest Montana, in an expanse of backcountry between the crest of the Whitefish Range and the glacier-carved peaks that hug the Continental Divide, there’s a good chance Leif Haugen will be the first person on Earth to see it.
More about Raymond Zhong A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 12, 2023, Section A , Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Spotting Wildfires With a Sharp (Human) Lens.