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45-534: The mountains are typical of the rolling terrain of the piedmont region of North Carolina, and are somewhat similar in formation to the nearby Caraway Mountains and Uwharrie Mountains . The Cane Creek Mountains may have formed as a part of the larger coastal range that was once the Uwharries, which are thought to have formed as a part of the Alleghenian or Appalachian orogeny 300–350 million years ago during

90-400: A device known as an Osborne Fire Finder , and call for wildfire suppression crews. Lookouts also report weather changes and plot the location of lightning strikes during storms. The location of the strike is monitored for a period of days afterwards, in case of ignition. A typical fire lookout tower consists of a small room, known as a cab, atop a large steel or wooden tower. Historically,

135-550: A few of the Maritime Provinces . Nova Scotia decommissioned the last of its 32 fire towers in 2015 and had them torn down by a contractor. The first fire lookout tower was built to the plans of Forstmeister Walter Seitz between 1890 and 1900, located in the "Muskauer Forst" near Weißwasser . Warnings were transmitted by light signal. For transmission of location, Seitz divided the forest area into so-called "Jagen", numbered areas, with that number to be transmitted to

180-566: A person watching the forest for wildfire can be an effective and cheap fire control measure. The history of fire lookout towers predates the United States Forest Service , founded in 1905. Many townships, private lumber companies, and State Forestry organizations operated fire lookout towers on their own accord. The Great Fire of 1910 , also known as the Big Blowup, burned 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km ) through

225-420: A sentinel in the forest attracting lost or injured hikers, that make their way to the tower knowing they can get help. In some locations around the country, fire lookout towers can be rented by public visitors that obtain a permit. These locations provide a unique experience for the camper, and in some rental locations, the check out time is enforced when the fire lookout operator returns for duty, and takes over

270-618: A terrestrial version for forest fire smoke detection was developed by DLR and IQ Wireless . Currently, about 200 of these sensors are installed around Germany, while similar systems have been deployed in other European countries, Mexico, Kazakhstan and the USA. Several Canadian provinces have fire lookout towers. Dorset, Ontario 's Scenic Tower was built on site of former fire lookout tower (1922-1962). Many fire lookout towers are simply cabs that have been fitted to large railroad water tank towers that are 30 to 60 feet (9 to 20 m) high. One of

315-782: Is a plateau region located in the Eastern United States . It is situated between the Atlantic Plain and the Blue Ridge Mountains , stretching from New York in the north to central Alabama in the south. The Piedmont Province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands physiographic division and consists of the Piedmont Upland, and the Piedmont Lowlands sections. The Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line marks

360-410: Is a tower that provides housing and protection for a person known as a " fire lookout ", whose duty it is to search for wildfires in the wilderness . It is a small building, usually on the summit of a mountain or other high vantage point to maximize viewing distance and range, known as view shed . From this vantage point the fire lookout can see smoke that may develop, determine the location by using

405-536: Is complex, with numerous rock formations of different materials and ages intermingled with one another. Essentially, the Piedmont is the remnant of several ancient mountain chains that have since been eroded. Geologists have identified at least five separate events which have led to sediment deposition, including the Grenville orogeny (the collision of continents that created the supercontinent Rodinia ) and

450-611: Is its southern boundary.) The fall line, where the land rises abruptly from the coastal plain, marks the limit of navigability on many major rivers, so inland ports sprang up along it. Within the Piedmont region itself, there are several areas of urban concentration, the largest being the Atlanta metropolitan area in Georgia. The Piedmont cuts Maryland in half, covering the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area . In Virginia ,

495-755: The Adirondack Forest Preserve and Catskill Park , have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places . During the Edo period in Japan fire lookout towers ( 火の見櫓 , Hinomi-yagura ) housed the fire fighting team of town ( 町火消 , Machi-bi-keshi ) . Usually the fire lookout tower was built near a fire station ( 番屋 , Ban-ya ) , and was equipped with a ladder, lookout platform, and an alarm bell ( 半鐘 , Hanshō ) ( ja ). From these towers watchmen could observe

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540-618: The Appalachian orogeny during the formation of Pangaea . The last major event in the history of the Piedmont was the break-up of Pangaea, when North America and Africa began to separate. Large basins formed from the rifting and were filled by the sediments shed from the surrounding higher ground. The series of Mesozoic basins is almost entirely located inside the Piedmont region. Piedmont soils are generally clay -like ( Ultisols ) and moderately fertile. In some areas they have suffered from erosion and over-cropping, particularly in

585-675: The Brown Company which owned over 400,000 acres of timberland, set up a series of effective forest-fire lookout towers, possibly the first in the nation, and by 1917 helped establish a forest-fire insurance company. In 1933, during the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt formed the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), consisting of young men and veterans of World War I. It

630-540: The Gloucester tree in Australia, added a permanent platform to the tree by building a wooden or, later, metal structure at the top of the tree, with metal spikes hammered into the trunk to form a spiral ladder. These 'platform trees' were often equipped with telephones, fire finder tables, seats and guy-wires . There are many different types of lookouts. In the early days, the fire lookout operator simply climbed

675-1033: The Greater Richmond metropolitan area is the largest urban concentration. In North Carolina, the Piedmont Crescent includes several metropolitan clusters such as Charlotte metropolitan area , the Piedmont Triad , and the Research Triangle . Other notable areas include the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC Combined Statistical Area in South Carolina, and the Philadelphia metropolitan area in Pennsylvania. Fire tower A fire lookout tower , fire tower , or lookout tower

720-527: The Italian : Piemonte , meaning " foothill ", ultimately from Latin "pedemontium", meaning "at the foot of the mountains", similar to the name of the Italian region of Piedmont ( Piemonte ), abutting the Alps . The surface relief of the Piedmont is characterized by relatively low, rolling hills with heights above sea level between 200 feet (50 m) and 800 feet to 1,000 feet (250 m to 300 m). Its geology

765-460: The fire lookout operator often receives hundreds of forest visitors during a weekend and provides a needed “pre-fire suppression” message, supported by handouts from the " Smokey Bear ", or " Woodsy Owl " education campaigns. This educational information is often distributed to young hikers that make their way up to the fire lookout tower. In this aspect, the towers are remote way stations and interpretive centers. The fire lookout tower also acts as

810-540: The Cane Creek Mountains located north of Snow Camp . The highest point in the range and in Alamance County is Cane Creek Mountain, which is approximately 987 feet (301 m). Perhaps the most famous peak in the range is the 267 m (902 ft) Bass Mountain , the former home of an annual bluegrass music festival. Contrary to some local belief, Bass Mountain is not the highest peak in

855-667: The Cane Creek Mountains, are remnants of the sizable mountain chain. The Cane Creek Mountains lie in the Carolina Slate Belt , a belt that consists of heated and deformed volcanic and sedimentary rocks. The belt is best known for old abandoned gold mines. North Carolina led the nation in gold production for 50 years , between the discovery of a 17-pound (7.7 kg) gold nugget at the Reed Gold Mine in Cabarrus County, NC near Charlotte in 1799 and

900-673: The Piedmont's eastern boundary with the Coastal Plain. To the west, it is mostly bounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains , the easternmost range of the Appalachians. The width of the Piedmont varies, being quite narrow above the Delaware River but nearly 300 miles (475 km) wide in North Carolina . The Piedmont's area is approximately 80,000 square miles (210,000 km ). The French word Piedmont comes from

945-608: The South where cotton was historically the chief crop. In the central Piedmont region of North Carolina and Virginia , tobacco is the main crop, while in the north region there is more diversity, including orchards , dairying , and general farming . The portion of the Piedmont region in the Southern United States is closely associated with the Piedmont blues , a style of blues music that originated there in

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990-597: The U.S. Midwest and South, but a few are in the mountainous West. In the northeast, all of the towers in the Adirondack Mountains and most in the Catskills were Aermotor towers erected between 1916 and 1921. The typical cab of an Aermoter had a 7 by 7 feet (2.1 by 2.1 m) cab with a fire locating device mounted in the center. Access was by way of a trap door in the floor. Ground cabs are still known as "towers" even though there may be no such tower under

1035-471: The cab for the day shift. Fire lookout towers are an important part of American history and several organizations have been founded to save, rebuild, restore, and operate fire lookout towers. Starting in 2002, traditional fire watch was replaced by "FireWatch", optical sensors located on old lookout towers or mobile phone masts. Based on a system developed by the DLR for analyzing gases and particles in space,

1080-436: The cab. These towers can be one, two or three stories tall with foundations made of natural stone or concrete. These towers vary greatly in size, but many are simple wooden or steel tower cabs that were constructed using the same plans, sans the tower. The simplest kind consist of a ladder to a suitable height. Such trees could have platforms on the ground next to them for maps and a fire finder. A more elaborate version, such as

1125-734: The city. He received a patent for this system in 1902. Seitz traveled to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition for a presentation of his idea in the USA. As wood had been a key building material in Russia for centuries, urban fires were a constant threat to the towns and cities. To address that issue, in the early 19th century a program was launched to construct fire stations equipped with lookout towers called kalancha , overlooking mostly low-rise quarters. Watchmen standing vigil there could signal other stations as well as their own using simple signals. Surviving towers are often local landmarks. Fire towers are still in use in Australia, particularly in

1170-558: The country. While earlier lookouts used tall trees and high peaks with tents for shelters, by 1911 permanent cabins and cupolas were being constructed on mountaintops. Beginning in 1910, the New Hampshire Timberlands Owners Association, a fire protection group, was formed and soon after, similar organizations were set up in Maine and Vermont. A leader of these efforts, W.R. Brown , an officer of

1215-477: The discovery of gold during the California Gold Rush of 1849. Limited gold mining continues to take place, but several mining companies continue to operate, both on the slate belt and in and near the Cane Creek Mountains. Most mineral production in the area is crushed stone for road aggregate and pyrophyllite for factories, ceramics, filler, paint and insecticide carriers. The northern edge of

1260-530: The entire town, and in the event of a fire they would ring the alarm bell, calling up firemen and warning town residents. In some towns the bells were also used to mark the time. While the fire lookout towers remained fully equipped into the Shōwa period , they were later replaced by telephone and radio broadcasting systems in many cities. Like the United States, fire towers were built across Canada to protect

1305-521: The fire is to be managed. The more modern policy is to "manage fire", not simply to suppress it. Fire lookout towers provide a reduction in time of fire detection to time of fire management assessment. Idaho had the most known lookout sites (966); 196 of them still exist, with roughly 60 staffed each summer. Kansas is the only U.S. state that has never had a lookout. A number of fire lookout tower stations, including many in New York State near

1350-418: The following morning." To prevent and suppress fires, the U.S. Forest Service made another rule that townships, corporations and States would bear the cost of contracting fire suppression services, because at the time there was not the large Forest Service Fire Department that exists today. As a result of the above rules, early fire detection and suppression became a priority. Towers began to be built across

1395-853: The formation and rifting of Pangaea . This earlier range is thought to have had peaks more than 20,000 feet (6,100 m) high, which would rival the Himalayas , the Andes , and the Alaska Range . However, erosion has worn this old mountain range down. The highest peaks of this old range are now found in the Appalachian Mountains on the eastern coast of North America and in the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco in Africa . The heavily eroded hills of piedmont, including

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1440-787: The last wooden fire lookout towers in Southern California was the South Mount Hawkins Fire Lookout, in the Angeles National Forest. A civilian effort is underway to rebuild the tower after its loss in the Curve Fire of September 2002. The typical cab of a wooden tower can be from 10 ft × 10 ft (3.0 m × 3.0 m) to 14 ft × 14 ft (4.3 m × 4.3 m) Steel towers can vary in size and height. They are very sturdy, but tend to sway in

1485-665: The late 19th century. According to the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society, most Piedmont blues musicians came from Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. During the Great Migration , African Americans migrated to the Piedmont. With the Appalachian Mountains to the west, those who might otherwise have spread into rural areas stayed in cities and were thus exposed to a broader mixture of music than those in, for example,

1530-551: The mountainous regions of the south-eastern states. Victoria 's Forest Fire Management operates 72 towers across the state during the fire season with towers being constructed as recently as 2016. Jimna Fire Tower in Southeastern Queensland is the tallest fire tower in the country, at 47 meters above the ground, and is included on the state heritage register. Today hundreds of towers are still in service with paid-staff and/or volunteer citizens. In some areas,

1575-633: The mountains begins on the southern bank of Great Alamance Creek , approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Interstate 40 in Graham and runs in a southwesterly direction towards Liberty in Randolph County . The range covers much of the southwest quadrant of Alamance County. While much of the range is a series of rolling hills that are common throughout the North Carolina Piedmont Region, there are several peaks in

1620-526: The mountains where local historians theorize that small military parties may have been able to fortify their position. The mountains are home to families, farms , and television , radio , and cellular communications towers. There is also a fire tower located on top of Cane Creek Mountain that is no longer safe for use. The piedmont region of North Carolina is home to several small mountain ranges and monadnocks , including: Piedmont (United States) The Piedmont / ˈ p iː d m ɒ n t /

1665-618: The range, although the range is occasionally referred to as the "Bass Mountains". The mountains and Alamance County were home to the local Native American tribes, including the Sissipahaw . The area saw major activity during the American Colonial and Revolutionary period, with several battles taking place in and near the range, including Pyle's Massacre and the Battle of Alamance . There are several cave sites throughout

1710-429: The remaining fire lookout towers, but in several environments, the technology failed. Fires detected from space are already too large to make accurate assessments for control. Cell phones in wilderness areas still suffer from lack of signal. Today, some fire lookout towers remain in service, because having human eyes being able to detect smoke and call in the fire report allows fire management officials to decide early how

1755-474: The rural Mississippi delta. Thus, Piedmont blues was influenced by many types of music, such as ragtime , country, and popular songs — styles that had comparatively less influence on blues music in other regions. Many major cities are located on the Atlantic Seaboard fall line , the eastern boundary of the Piedmont. (In Georgia and Alabama, where the Piedmont runs mostly east to west, the fall line

1800-462: The states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The smoke from this fire drifted across the entire country to Washington D.C. — both physically and politically — and it challenged the five-year-old Forest Service to address new policies regarding fire suppression, and the fire did much to create the modern system of fire rules, organizations, and policies. One of the rules as a result of the 1910 fire stated "all fires must be extinguished by 10 a.m.

1845-628: The tops of tall trees have also been used to mount permanent platforms. Sometimes natural rock may be used to create a lower platform. In cases where the terrain makes a tower unnecessary, the structure is known as a ground cab . Ground cabs are called towers , even if they don't sit on a tower. Towers gained popularity in the early 1900s, and fires were reported using telephones, carrier pigeons and heliographs . Although many fire lookout towers have fallen into disrepair from neglect, abandonment and declining budgets, some fire service personnel have made efforts to preserve older fire towers, arguing that

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1890-485: The valuable trees for the forestry industry. Most towers were built in the early 1920s to 1950s and were a mix of wood and steel structures. A total of 325 towers dotted the landscape of Ontario in the 1960s, and today approx. 156 towers span the province, but only a handful of towers remained in use after the 1970s. They are still in use in British Columbia , Alberta , Saskatchewan , Manitoba , Ontario and

1935-474: The wind more than wooden towers. The typical cab of a steel tower can be from 10 ft × 10 ft (3.0 m × 3.0 m) to 14 ft × 14 ft (4.3 m × 4.3 m) The Aermotor Company , originally of Chicago, Illinois, was the first and lead manufacturer of steel fire towers from the 1910s to the mid-1920s. These towers have very small cabs, as the towers are based on Aermotor windmill towers . These towers are often found in

1980-452: Was during this time that the CCC set about building fire lookout towers, and access roads to those towers. The U.S. Forest Service took great advantage of the CCC workforce and initiated a massive program of construction projects, including fire lookout towers. In California alone, some 250 lookout towers and cabs were built by CCC workers between 1933 and 1942. The heyday of fire lookout towers

2025-603: Was from 1930 through 1950. During World War II, the Aircraft Warning Service was established, operating from mid-1941 to mid-1944. Fire lookouts were assigned additional duty as Enemy Aircraft Spotters, especially on the West Coast of the United States. From the 1960s through the 1990s the towers took a back seat to new technology, aircraft, and improvements in radios. The promise of space satellite fire detection and modern cell phones tried to compete with

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