Fire on the Horizon

The view from High Knob Fire Tower is worth the hike—with or without fires. Miles and miles of horizon, hills, and heaven, all under a canopy of clouds that drift in and out of relevance. I hiked this trail with my sister and her family in May this year. The verdant brush with hopeful buds and a lingering chill in the air offered a delightful backdrop to our hike. When we emerged at the top and took in the 360-views from the catwalk that circled the observation room of the fire tower, our attention became focused on the bountiful nature that surrounded us, stretching out in every direction under the protective eye of this fire tower.

Located just over the West Virginia line in the Shenandoah, near Rockingham County, this watchful grandfather is positioned perfectly for every kind of weather—thunderstorms, hurricanes, rainbows, and sunshine. The building, made of local stone and with an all-encompassing view of mountains and sky, appears as though at one point in its life it wanted to be a Dutch windmill but found a greater purpose in hunting the horizon for fires. (Of course, I immediately wanted to plop down inside the tower’s observation room for an afternoon of hunting for words and inspiration. But then again, that feeling goes with me everywhere!)

Built by veterans of WWI, this fire tower was put into service in 1940. The historic significance of those community-minded veterans became a factor in saving the tower from destruction in the late 1960s when fire tower work was deemed no longer effective. But for several decades, this method of spotting a fire using a contraption with lines and triangulation mathematics was effective in determining the exact location of danger. The fire spotter would then send notification to a dispatcher to alert the authorities. There was even a reported romance that turned into marriage between the first fire spotter at the tower and the radio dispatch clerk, to whom he reported the fires. Apparently, Mr. Fire Spotter recognized fires in all kinds of places, including his own heart.

While we hiked toward the pinnacle of this trail, the slope of the mountain that we traversed became very steep, left to right. My niece commented, “Our world just went sideways.” It described, perfectly, how I felt about the past two years. Covid19 had tiled our word sideways, nothing was level or certain. We dipped into our reserves to find perseverance and patience and empathy and more perseverance—for ourselves and our communities. Perhaps we have navigated the worst of the challenge and, hopefully, gotten to the other side of a very long slog.

It all got me thinking about the purpose of fire spotting and how we might benefit from a proverbial fire tower in our day-to-day lives. It would have been nice to have had someone in a fire tower in February 2020 to shout: “Watch Out: Pandemic Coming.” It also made me appreciate the breadth and depth of community and the protective nature of a fire spotter—someone in a tower seeking out danger that might impact a neighboring county or one miles and miles away. Nonetheless, a fire that smoked anywhere within sight presented a danger to someone, and that fire spotter cared enough about his own, and distant, communities of people and wildlife to spend his days watching and protecting from the danger in the distance.

I believe that kind of community spirit still smolders out on the edges, out on the horizon or in our hearts. I’m hopeful, anyway.