B4
THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, SEpTEmbER 21, 2021
Tower: ‘We’ve got the tools and volunteers ready to bring it back’
Continued from page b2
ripped out the old roof, and
installed a temporary one.
They painted the exterior to
seal it from the weather, and
battened down the lookout
for the winter.
Planning to resume the
work the following summer,
they left their tools and bun-
dles of cedar roof shingles.
Little did they know that
administrative
permission
would delay their return, put-
ting the restoration of Bull
of the Woods on hold for the
next 16 years.
The Bull Complex fire
When last spring arrived,
Allen was excited. He had
lined up a series of summer
projects for the Sand Moun-
tain Society volunteers, cul-
minating with a big work
session over Labor Day
weekend. At long last, he’d
gotten the go-ahead to return
to Bull of the Woods.
As they prepared for their
return, the summer grew
increasingly hot and dry, spik-
ing several days above 100,
and setting historic records.
On Aug. 2, lightning struck
the Bull of the Woods Wilder-
ness, igniting the dry forest in
several locations. The indi-
vidual fires soon spread, cre-
ating the Bull Complex fire.
Fire crews were rallied
and fire management plans
quickly drawn up. Within
the discussions, the Forest
Service Heritage Resource
team identified key historic
structures to focus protective
efforts.
They reached out to Sand
Mountain Society and reas-
sured them that the Bull of
the Woods Lookout was on
that list.
The plan was to dispatch
small crews to wrap the struc-
tures in fire-resistant material
and to clear away the perim-
eter of trees and brush. This
had been done to the Bull of
the Woods Lookout during
the 2011 Motherload fire.
A mission was set up to fly
a crew to the lookout on Aug.
14, but called off due to con-
ditions. The team mobilized
the next day, but conditions
were still deemed unsafe.
Fire managers turned their
efforts to wrapping other sig-
nificant historic sites. Fire
crews wrapped the build-
ings and bridges at Bagby
Hot Springs, Hawk Moun-
tain Lookout Cabin and the
Gold Butte Lookout, which
the Sand Mountain Society
had restored.
Fire managers waited for
an opportunity to dispatch a
crew to wrap the Bull of the
Woods Lookout.
Members of the Sand
Mountain Society checked
the updates on the fire inci-
dent maps, growing increas-
ingly anxious as they watched
fire advance toward the look-
out. They sent a flurry of
emails, offering to help and
imploring the Forest Service
to make every possible effort
to save the historic lookout.
By the final week of
August, the fire was within
a half-mile of the lookout.
It was clear that favorable
weather conditions and per-
sonnel availability were not
going to align in time to send
a crew to wrap the lookout
tower.
Fire managers launched
a new tactic. For six days,
helicopters dropped water in
an attempt to slow the fire’s
march toward the tower.
On the last day of August,
a helicopter flew to the site,
where a rappelling fire crew
cleared trees and brush
around the lookout.
By Labor Day weekend,
the smoke engulfed the look-
out. Burning embers rained
down on the lookout’s uncov-
ered roof.
Allen continued exchang-
ing texts with the lookout
ranger stationed on Sand
Mountain. “Looks like the
Bull is going to get it,” he
wrote.
Allen’s father and the look-
out had grown old together.
When Allen Jr. first saw the
Bull of the Woods Lookout,
they were both teenagers: he
was 18 years old; the lookout
was 17 years old. Now, Allen
Jr. was 80 years old, and the
tower, 79. They were both a
little more frail.
This summer, Allen Jr. had
been finding it harder to make
the long uphill hikes to look-
out peaks and perform the
physically-demanding con-
struction labor. If his days
restoring lookouts with his
son were drawing to an end,
restoring Bull of the Woods
would have been his perfect
swan song.
On the evening of Sept. 2,
Allen and his father watched
a bank of smoke rising from
the flank of Mount Hood.
Having both been trained as
lookouts and in fire science,
they knew how to read the
smoke and what the wind
direction meant for the fate
of the lookout tower. They
didn’t need to say a word, and
watched the smoke in silence.
The last lookout stands
Mt. Hood National Forest
once had more than 80 look-
out towers. With the loss of
the Bull of the Woods Look-
out, six remain.
“I’m feeling guilty,” Allen
said. “Because people look
to me to help save these
last places. And I keep ask-
ing myself if I did enough or
what else could I have done.”
He is devastated by the
loss, but not deterred. After
all, when the Sand Moun-
tain Lookout burned to the
ground, from the ashes rose
the Sand Mountain Society.
The transplanted and
restored lookout tower on
Sand Mountain is considered
a historic restoration tour de
force. It is staffed by the For-
est Service as well as a rota-
tion of Sand Mountain Soci-
ety volunteers, including
Allen Jr.
“It’s unlikely to get per-
mission from the Forest Ser-
vice to rebuild Bull of the
Woods,” Allen said. “But I’m
kind of a dreamer. And if they
do give us the ok, we’ve got
the tools and volunteers ready
to bring it back.”
legend
of the
fall
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