The Man on the Mountain Top - 1957 film about forest fire lookouts in BC

The film looks at the role of the fire lookouts across British Columbia. The role was to spot fires to help the Forest Service deal with wildfires. They were located quite literally on the top of mountains, sort of required if you are to see anything.
These lookouts were crucial during an era when the technology did not exist to find fires early on in any other way. It was a popular summer job for university students you liked solitude in the wilderness.
Back in 1957 there were 150 permanent lookouts and more were added temporarily as needed. Each lookout covered an area with a radius of about 15 kilometers, this is an area of about 80,000 hectares. There about 60,000,000 hectares of forest in BC so the lockouts covered 20% of the forests at best but since they needed to overlap their coverage so that the location could be triangulated it was a lot less.
This film was made for the BC Forest Service in 1957
Produced by the Public INformation and Education Divison
S.E. Park - Director
Barbara Davies - Photography
Ted Reynolds - Narration
Doug Forrester - Story
This production was later re-edited and titled 'The Man on the Tower' (1965)
This production is one of a collection of historical films and videos that were digitized as part of the celebration of the centenary of the BC Forest Service in 2012. Digitization was done through a grant from the UBC Ike Barber Learning Centre and funding from the BC Forest Service Centenary Society.
• The Man in the Tower

[@EdmontonRails]

Getting paid to have a premium view of the scenery, I could only dream of a job that good now

[@OkanaganGardenerandForager]

I'm glad to see you putting out new content again! Thank you!

[@BCHistory]

thanks

[@chevtruck1000]

Incredible how wrong the policy was then. Not letting the forest clear itself out with occasional fires has allowed the buildup of so much fuel in underbrush and small, dead trees that now there is no way to stop a fire from taking out everything it touches. We are paying for it now.

[@amarm4667]

Their main objective was to protect the logging industry then, it would’ve been different if they actually gotten around to logging all those areas by now, but obviously that didn’t happen now we pay for it

[@ricknelson576]

This,I believe we need back here. 24/7 fire towers instead of trusting these satellites to tell us. I've been here my 67 years of life and back in the day don't remember have forest fires like we now experience every year now. Climate change or not.

[@BCHistory]

There is probably a case for some lockouts but the data of the last 20 years cleary show a major shift in fire seasons from the period of 1911 to 2001

[@jimhenderson9167]

@@BCHistory ..... very true. We don't want another fire season like the late 50's when many millions of acres burned in the Northwest.