California has a number of lookouts staffed by volunteers, and there are a few in the other states I've listed, too. If you don't have the experience but really want to do this, one thing to do is volunteer as a lookout for part of a season or two. If you send off a resume but don't also do the personal networking, your chances of getting a fire job are low. Follow up with another call after the hiring list comes out. (Ask for the Fire Management office.) Introduce yourself, tell them that you're interested in working as a lookout, ask about possible vacancies, ask good questions, sound interested and professional. This is super important: do your research! Identify specific forests and lookouts that you'd be interested in, and then call the ranger district that covers that area. Read the qualification requirements in the announcements carefully, and talk to other lookouts or hiring managers for resume tips. Most successful applicants will have past experience as lookouts or in fire, but if you don't have that, you need to really build a resume that emphasizes outdoor work and volunteer experience, as well as related education. The job application deadlines are several months before the start of the season - so if you want a summer lookout job in 2020, you'll need to catch the job announcements listed in the fall of 2019. There are only about 300 or so operating lookouts in the west, and there's not much turnover since it's such an amazing life.Īll the federal lookout jobs are announced on the website, so that's what you need to follow. (Alberta is the only place in Canada that still has a substantial number of lookouts.) A couple of state agencies still staff live-in lookouts, too, though the number of those is dropping fast. Forest Service, with a smaller number operated by the Park Service and the BLM. There are a few others scattered around elsewhere.
In the US, the live-in towers are pretty much all in the west, mostly in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, and New Mexico. because living on a mountaintop is what it's all about. This post is about finding jobs at the live-in lookouts. There are two main kinds of fire lookout structures in the US: small one-room buildings 12 to 15 feet square that include both a work area and basic living facilities and tall steel towers usually about 7 feet square where people look for fires but don't spend the night. If you say "fire watch" instead, people will just roll their eyes at you. so here are a few basics:įirst off, in the US we use the term "fire lookouts" for the lookout buildings, as well as the people who work in them. Since the Firewatch game came out, I've gotten quite a few messages from people interested in finding a lookout job.
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