About the Author
The author, Eileen Moore, has resided in Arizona for the last thirty-eight years. She has visited the towers and interviewed the lookouts, gaining an unusual perspective of their lonely vigil. She enjoys sharing her experience and her photography in exploring Arizona.
Arizona contains the largest yellow pine forest in the world. This may come as a surprise to visitors not familiar with our terrain, expecting sand and blazing hot temperatures. Taking the time to study the geography of Arizona, we find the northern highlands stretching across the upper third of the state and down the eastern border with New Mexico, punctuated with the sky islands of southern Arizona. While the harsh rugged ranges of far western Arizona offer little vegetation, the peaks of the highlands are shrouded in thick forests of ponderosa pine, fir and spruce.
Eighty one sentinels stand guard over the forests of our northern and eastern highlands. Eight one
sentinels buffeted by the elements, timber rotting, metal rusting as the bolts loosen and the boards begin to
strain. They stand as reminders of a time past, before technology became the answer to all threats.
These are the fire towers, sheltering lookouts who stand watch during lightning storms, hot afternoons
and the cold of early spring. During the warmer months, around sixty of the towers and cabins, tucked into
isolated pockets or standing on exposed peaks, are in active service. Radios crackle as lightning dances
across the peaks, the men and women watching from the towers report the wisps of smoke that rise from each
strike.
Standing Watch: The Fire Towers of Arizona, tells the history of these towers and the fight to keep
our forests green as we learned the value of the resources surrounding us. Eileen Moore takes us to each
tower, listening to the lookouts as they keep vigil from early spring, through the summer, into early fall.
Each chapter describes the towers of a specific public agency, whether Forest Service, Park Service,
Bureau of Land Management or Native tribe. Along with the individual towers, Standing Watch gives us
profiles of an Apache Hot Shot crew, a fire tech on the Navajo Reservation, the life cycle of ladybugs, two
devastating wildfires and the close quarters of a couple working together on a fire tower. A special feature also
looks at the tree towers that were once at the heart of fighting wildfire on the north Kaibab National Forest.
As Arizona moves from its status as a rural state into the modern technological age, with urban areas
crowding the edges of the wilderness, Standing Watch is a tribute to the fire towers and the lookouts that have
preserved the wild places of this state for generations to come.
ISBN 0-9672576-1-1 256 pages, 115 photos $13.99
Retail List Price: $13.99 plus $3.00 shipping and handling anywhere in the USA, $18.31 total