The Madeleine Brand Show for July 20, 2012
Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout
David McNew/Getty Images
Colorado has been in the headlines all summer. Massive wildfires burned hundreds of homes there last month. The US Forest Service spends about two billion dollars a year preparing for and putting out wildfires. Fire lookouts are part of that effort - those are people who sit in towers in remote areas, looking for forest fire. That's what Philip Connors does every spring and summer. From April to August, he leaves his wife and his regular life and heads into the New Mexico wilderness to be a fire lookout for the U.S. Forest Service. And he's all by himself, without any internet, phone, or television. It's just him and thousands of acres of forest below. He's written about his experience in his memoir "Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout."














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