Fire lookout gets a new lease on life

An historic lookout up the North Fork on Coal Ridge received some badly needed care last week as Forest Service crews installed new siding on the weather-beaten building.

The Coal Ridge Lookout, which has sat atop the Whitefish Range since 1928, doesn’t resemble a lookout — the current map actually calls it a cabin. It has small windows, and the Osborne Fire Finder used to pinpoint fire starts was mounted on a metal pole outside of the building.

But it was a definitely a fire lookout, Flathead National Forest lookout Leif Haugen said.

“Back then, firefighters lived in the lookouts,” he explained. “When they spotted a blaze, they went to it and tried to put it out.”

Today, lookouts spot fires and crews come in to put them out.

In 1929, the Forest Service went to the more familiar lookout design with large windows. They came as kits and were built in Spokane, Wash. and Columbia Falls, Haugen said.

Preservation of the Coal Ridge structure started a couple of years ago when crews nailed on a new shake roof. The siding project was made possible through a partnership with the Northwest Montana Chapter of the Forest Fire Lookout Association, a worldwide organization dedicated to history, restoration and preservation of firefighter lookouts.

Chuck Manning is the chairman of the Northwest Montana Chapter, which was founded last year. Manning said a group of firefighter lookout volunteers were looking to help the Forest Service with lookout preservation.

They formed a chapter of the larger organization once they learned that all funds raised locally would be used locally. They bought $1,500 worth of siding, and the Forest Service provided labor and a helicopter to ferry supplies to the top. The Coal Ridge project took three days to complete.

The lookout likely will be used as an emergency shelter, Haugen said. The Forest Service built another lookout on Coal Ridge further to the east in 1941. That lookout was perched on a tower and has since been destroyed. All that remains are the tower poles.

Manning worked at the Thoma Lookout in 1963, north of Coal Ridge not far from the Canadian border. Today he volunteers as a lookout, and last year he was back at Thoma for 10 days filling in while Haugen was away. It was a 50-year reunion, he said, and he still recognized some of the work he did on the lookout five decades ago.

Satellites now detect lightning strikes across the landscape, and aircraft or drones can spot fires. But there’s something to be said for having a lookout in the woods 24-7, scanning the woods for smokes, Manning said. Satellites may detect lightning strikes, but they won’t see abandoned campfires or illegal burns.

“There’s nothing better than having eyes out there,” Manning said.

Lookout personnel also help with communication, relaying messages to crews when radio signals can’t be picked up at dispatch centers in Kalispell.

The Coal Ridge Lookout provides a 360-degree view of the Whitefish range and northern Glacier National Park. The easiest way to hike to the lookout is from Moran Creek Road. Another trail starts from Road 317B in the Coal Creek drainage. It’s 3.4 miles long and more than 3,100 feet up, winding through a pleasant old forest.

Manning said the lookout association wants to slowly expand operations in the next few years. They’ll be talking soon with the Kootenai National Forest and Glacier National Park. To learn more about them, visit online at www.nwmt-ffla.org.