“Dispatcher, I have a small glowing red and purple disc at 174 degrees, 31 miles, hovering over Mormon Lake.”
“I copy, 174 degrees, 31 miles. We’ll call this Incident #4.”
In 18 seasons at a handful of fire lookouts in central Arizona I’ve seen flares dropped from Air Force craft, I’ve seen dust from the Painted Desert roll down the Little Colorado like a puffy red dragon, I’ve seen a rock slide in the Grand Canyon send a column of white 1000 feet high; I’ve seen peregrines plummet, kestrels float, ravens swirl and eagles inherit the earth. I’ve seen smokes of course, like pieces of lint caught in the green mohair of a pine slope. Like a creeping of fuzzy caterpillar across a plain of yellow grass. Like a fuzzy blue edge to a ridgeline that maybe is building toward the next big one or maybe is my eyes playing tricks.
I’ve reported hundreds of smokes that didn’t become big fires because experts got there quickly and put them out. And I’ve been fooled by details that were not fires: an orange glow I was sure was trees torching turned out to be a fat moonrise; good thing I noticed this before I called the dispatcher to get engines rolling. One five extreme hot June afternoon I noticed a clump of bubbling white-slightly-brown color that didn’t move like a truck throwing dust on a dirt road so I sent the azimuth and distance over the air waves and the dispatcher sent the helicopter from Green Base and I held my breath anxiously for long minutes only to hear, “You’re not going to believe this.” The helitack foreman described a flock of sheep milling around in circles while their shepherd paused with his thermos of coffee.
I’ve seen a double arch of rainbow below my windows that made me feel like I was being offered a doorway to an enchanted land. I’ve seen flashes from signal mirrors when friends wanted to say hello before coming up my dirt road, and mirror flashes from the forest service patrol wanting me to know where he was out there trying to find a smoking juniper tree about to go out. Spying the twinkle from his mirror, and judging the distance between him and the smoke, I could tell him to keep going four more poles along the power line road and look right. Soon he had the smoke in sight.
Because I learned to fly a Cessna 152 once upon a time, I enjoy noticing what aircraft share skies with the peaks where I work. Luke Air Force trainers streaked by below the windows on Towers Mountain. Helicopters beetle by on their missions of mercy to the hospital. When my friend Bruce Grubbs flies a tour to Monument Valley he calls me from Sedona airport before take off. When I hear a Cessna 206, I know to step out on the catwalk in my red Macys sweatshirt and wave as they go by.
Yes, I see animals. A bobcat walked right under the stairs of Turkey Butte Lookout and strutted over to a dark rock outcropping like he owned the place. At Grandview tower I heard a shrieking and watched a coyote chase a young deer in and out through pine trees. At Bill Williams Lookout I would sometimes catch a bit of black movement on the switchbacks of the road below and when I focused my U.S. Navy SHIPS 7 x 50 binoculars I’d find a bear waddling or a turkey strutting. Hunters who climb my steps are sure I know exactly where the biggest rack grazes. I tell them, “Do you really think I’m going to help you shoot my neighbors?”
I’ve seen hail bouncing like popcorn on the catwalk. I’ve seen rain plummet out of August clouds as if a giant bucket was being poured out in a mushroom shaped blue stream. And lightning comes in myriad shapes: forked neurons flashing, bolts standing in one place dancing, tree-splitting flashes. My favorite is the distant cloud-to-cloud lightning that throbs inside tumbling blue cumulus mansions. To me that pulse looks like thoughts lighting up again and again.
Smoke, fire, stars, critters, cloud shows: much to look at if you spend decades in fire lookouts. But you know I’ve never seen a UFO. Not once have I called the dispatcher with details from outer space. But I keep looking.
