A Talent for Sloth

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work in a fire observation tower? The profession of fire spotter is dying out as satellites take over, but there are a few places left where a human keeps watch over vast areas of wilderness. Philip Connors is one of them. He spends months out of the year all alone, five miles from the nearest road, without running water or electricity, keeping an eye out for fire in the Gila National Forest.

It is a world of extremes. Having spent each fire season for nearly a decade in my little glass-walled perch, I’ve become acquainted with the look and feel of the border highlands each week of each month, from April through August: the brutal gales of spring, when a roar off the desert gusts over seventy miles an hour and the occasional snow squall turns my peak white; the dawning of summer in late May, when the wind abates and the aphids hatch and ladybugs emerge in great clouds from their hibernation; the fires of June, when dry lightning connects with the hills, sparking smokes that fill the air with the sweet smell of burning pine; the tremendous storms of July, when the thunder makes me flinch as if from the threat of a punch; and the blessed indolence of August, when the meadows bloom with wildflowers and the creeks run again, the rains having turned my world a dozen different shades of green. I’ve seen fires burn so hot they made their own weather; I’ve watched deer and elk frolic in the meadow below me and pine trees explode in a blue ball of smoke. If there’s a better job anywhere on the planet, I’d like to know about it.

Connors sees more fires than you might imagine, but has plenty of time for introspection. So it makes sense that he’s also a writer. Read about the life of a fire lookout at Latham’s Quarterly.