- [Joe, voiceover]: Welcome to Big Sky Country.
Montana is known for wide horizons and spectacular sunsets.
Ooh, that's nice!
Let's just sit with that for a second.
But locals know that these bright orange summer skies
can mean trouble.
While some people are watching the burning embers
of the setting sun, others out there
on the edge of the wilderness are on the lookout
for a different kind of glow, wildfires.
Mark Hufstetler is the lookout at Baptiste Tower
in Flathead National Forest, Montana.
- [Mark] It's my job to observe this valley
and watch it over the course of the season.
- [Woman Over Radio] ...reporting 0%.
This concludes your afternoon fire weather forecast.
- [Mark] If you see a fire,
you'll seldom see the orange flame,
but you'll see a light gray smoke that rises.
The height of the fire lookout era
was during the Great Depression
when there were several thousand active fire lookouts.
After World War II, the number began to decline
as aircraft and other forms of observation
began to take precedence.
- [Joe] But Flathead National Forest has gradually increased
the number of fire lookouts in recent years.
Oh, hello puppy.
Aren't you cute?
- [Mark] We found that there's still an important role
for having an actual human
observing the forest and observing for fires.
If there's a second fire lookout
who is also able to see the smoke.
You can often be as precise as the helicopter
and the aerial observers are.
- [Joe] But due to budgetary cuts
and an increasing dependence on technology
over human observers,
many states are leaving fire towers empty,
and wildfires are getting more frequent and more severe.
- [Reporter] California is battling 28 major fires.
- [Reporter 2] More than a million acres have burned.
- [Reporter 3] This is likely to be
the most substantial loss of life
from fire in the state's history.
- [Joe] So how and why do wildfires start?
Fire needs three things in order to burn,
fuel, oxygen, and heat.
The planet has warmed
about 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880.
This has made our woodlands drier,
which means more fuel for fires.
The heat that ignites a fire can happen naturally,
but most often wildfires are started by humans.
That's not good.
Things like unmanaged, trash fires,
poorly maintained equipment,
or even carelessly tossed cigarettes
account for more than 8 in 10 wildland fires.
And wildfire season typically used to last
just a few months each year
But in some Western states,
burn season has more than doubled in length since the 1970s.
- [Mark] A tremendous factor
is increasing human occupation of the land.
Something called the wildland-urban interface,
which means that people live closer
to the forest and have the potential
to be more seriously impacted by fire when it happens.
- [Joe] More people across the country are moving
into the so called WUI.
It's actually the fastest growing land use type
in the contiguous US.
That's due to a general increase in population
and an increase in the cost of living in urban areas.
Living near the forest is nice, don't get me wrong.
But WUI growth means more fires
and more complicated decisions for the people
whose job it is to control them.
- [Mark] Determining whether an individual fire
is a good thing or a bad thing.
It's a matter of looking at a very complex interrelationship
of environmental, cultural, political, social factors.
- [Joe] attitudes about wildfires used to be much simpler.
Fire, bad.
For decades, the predominant view was to eliminate all fires
anywhere, at any cost.
That attitude can be traced back in part, to August of 1910,
when a wildfire broke out in the Rockies
and burned three million acres of land.
It was known as the Big Burn, and it's still
one of the largest wildfires in American history.
After the Big Burn,
fire managers took a new aggressive attitude,
eliminate every fire, no matter what.
They even got a mascot.
- Smokey!
- Smokey's everywhere, reminding us to guard against fire.
- [Joe] And that was the way
the US dealt with fires for decades.
But in the 1960s and '70s,
the opinion on fire began to shift.
Fire researchers began to call for fire control
instead of eradication, and made the case
for regular controlled burns.
But they weren't the first
to recognize fire's value to a landscape.
For generations, indigenous communities across America
used controlled burns to foster species diversity,
and to keep the land healthy.
Since the 1970s, forest managers have been working
to clear out potential wildfire fuel that built up
during those decades of total fire suppression.
But blazes continue to destroy swaths of land
across the West.
It's clear that there's more work to be done.
- [Mark] Our assessment of fire
has become more complex and more nuanced.
We're able to take advantage
of some of the technological tools
that have made some lookouts more obsolete.
And we use them to improve our own lookout detection skills.
Have a good day, Baptiste.
- [Joe] In addition to aerial observers and fixed cameras,
which have been in use for decades,
fire managers are testing out unmanned aircraft
to observe and fight fires.
One company called Drone Amplified,
built drones that can set small fires
for prescribed burns from the sky,
and even start fires along the firebreak
to safely burn out fuels
and prevent a wildland fire from advancing.
We even watch fire from space.
NOAA and NASA's geostationary operational,
environmental satellites, rotate and sync with Earth
using infrared sensors that can detect heat
at any time of day or night.
New satellite images are beamed down several times per hour,
which lets us pinpoint fires and act much more quickly
to control them than ever before.
- [Mark] We have access to a variety of new tools
to observe and record the forest.
That's a wonderful thing, but it doesn't completely replace
the humanity that's involved
in observing and interpreting the forest.
- [Joe] As the climate shifts and wildland growth
becomes less predictable,
fire managers need more data than ever
to keep up with our changing world.
And human observers will be necessary for success.
- [Mark] I know every inch of the ground
that is under my care.
I can observe how the landscape changes over time.
I think it's important that everyone
find a place to call their own.
It doesn't have to be Baptiste lookout.
It doesn't have to be in the mountains or the forest.
It can be anywhere.
But I think establishing that connection with our world
is extraordinarily important.
It's something that makes you a more complete human being.
- [Joe] Hey everyone, if you enjoyed this episode
on wildfire and want more,
you should check out "Weathered" another brand new show
right here on Terra.
Their first episode will introduce you
to incredible people who actually survived wildfires
and what they're doing to make their communities safer.
We'll put a link down in the description.
Hey, before you go, PBS Digital Studios and "Overview"
want to hear from you.
We do a survey every year that helps us make more
of the stuff that you want to see.
You even get to vote on potential new shows.
So take the survey at the link in the description
and let them know you love "Overview."