The Man on the Mountain Top - 1957 film about forest fire lookouts in BC
Channel: BC History
Date: 2023-02-17

The film looks at the role of the fire lookouts across British Columbia.   The role was to spot fires to help the Forest Service deal with wildfires.   They were located quite literally on the top of mountains, sort of required if you are to see anything.

These lookouts were crucial during an era when the technology did not exist to find fires early on in any other way.   It was a popular summer job for university students you liked solitude in the wilderness.

Back in 1957 there were 150 permanent lookouts and more were added temporarily as needed.   Each lookout covered an area with a radius of about 15 kilometers, this is an area of about 80,000 hectares.   There about 60,000,000 hectares of forest in BC so the lockouts covered 20% of the forests at best but since they needed to overlap their coverage so that the location could be triangulated it was a lot less.

This film was made for the BC Forest Service in 1957
Produced by the Public INformation and Education Divison

S.E. Park - Director
Barbara Davies - Photography
Ted Reynolds - Narration
Doug Forrester - Story



This production was later re-edited and titled 'The Man on the Tower' (1965)

This production is one of a collection of historical films and videos that were digitized as part of the celebration of the centenary of the BC Forest Service in 2012. Digitization was done through a grant from the UBC Ike Barber Learning Centre and funding from the BC Forest Service Centenary Society.

http://youtu.be/U8Pi8CF_NT4