FROM MILE-HICH PEAKS RANGERS WATCH
FOR THE FOREST’S WORST ENEMY . . . FIRE
A lonely life on a mile-high mountain — that’s
what George Brown, Forest Ranger, lives for
five months of the year. He’s one of four rangers
who man the firetowers in Pisgah National For
est, keeping almost a 24-hour vigil, watching for
the tell-tale wisps of blue smoke which mean only
one thing—a forest fire!
George—or "Brownie”, as his fellow rangers
call him—moved into his tower home around the
middle of October. And there he stayed until the
twenty-first of this month, when the long sought-
for rain finally came—ending one of Western
North Carolina’s worst droughts.
The Pisgah District of Pisgah National Forest
maintains four firetowers: one atop Pilot Moun
tain, one on Ferrin Knob, one on High Top Moun
tain and the fourth, which is manned by Brownie,
on Frying Pan Mountain.
The Frying Pan Tower is located just a few
hundred yards off the Blue Ridge Parkway, be
tween Wagon Road Gap on U. S. Highway 276
and Mount Pisgah. Accessible only by foot-trail or
by a narrow jeep road from the Frying Pan Gap
Picnic Area, it stands at an elevation of 5320 feet.
Though the tower is equipped with a telephone
and a two-way short-wave radio, it has no electric
lights. At night, written reports, reading, and pre
paring and eating of evening meals are done with
the aid of a kerosene lamp. Lights aren’t needed
during the day, for the walls of the ten-by-ten
room atop the tower are all windows. Power for
the radio is obtained from a storage battery, kept
charged by a gasoline-powered generator. Water
for drinking and cooking must be carried from a
spring about 200 yards down the mountain.
The tower-dwelling ranger heats his "one-room
castle” and cooks his meals with a small wood
stove equipped with a flu-oven. Firewood is
plentiful, the only difficulty being the carrying
of armload after armload up the tower’s six flights
of steep stairsteps.
To those who have never experienced living in
a firetower, it might appear that living alone on
a mountain top would be a hard, monotonous life.
But, according to Brownie, it’s not that at all.
The short-wave radio is on 24 hours a day. Every
few minutes there are reports coming in concern
ing the spotting of a fire; the progress being made
in the fighting of a fire, either in the Pisgah Dis
trict or in an adjoining one; weather reports—to
which every ranger, especially during the fire
season, listens intently; reports from rangers
equipped with walkie-talkies or mobile radios
who are in the process of tracking down a poacher
or other law violator; and occasionally, though
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