Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors

May 19, 2013 Petra X rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-true-story

Five stars because I enjoyed reading the book, but for everything else, content, prose, direction, it's closer to a three-star. The book is absolutely ideal to listen to as an audio book because nothing much happens and so if you drift away, you won't miss anything. It is a bit like a day dream, you come back to reality with a pleasant, peaceful feeling and don't even give a thought to what was going on meantime.

I probably wouldn't be so hard on this book in the review if I hadn't just finished...more

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Aug 25, 2011 Laura rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Bettie

Shelves: audio-books, non-fiction, read-2011

For nearly a decade, Philip Connors has spent half of each year in a 7 foot by 7 foot room at the top of a tower, on top of a mountain, alone in millions of acres of remote American wilderness. His job: to look for wildfires.

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May 12, 2013 Leon rated it 4 of 5 stars

A decade ago Philip Connors left work as an editor at the Wall Street Journal and talked his way into a job far from the streets of lower Manhattan: working as one of the last fire lookouts in America. Spending nearly half the year in a 7' x 7' tower, 10,000 feet above sea level in remote New Mexico, his tasks were simple: keep watch over one of the most fire-prone forests in the country and sound the alarm at the first sign of smoke. Fire Season is Connors's remarkable reflection on work, our p

...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Gypsy Lady rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am grateful the author took the time to compile his thoughts into this book -- the GRAND PRIZE winner at the Banff Festival of Mountain Books in 2012. I wish him, Martha, and Alice my best and the life they are seeking.

The shortage of commas slows this reader’s understanding in several places.

There are some words I prefer not to see in print or to hear. When writing of himself and his dog Alice for example, the author uses terms and expressions as “shat” and “brown pile or a yellow puddle”....more

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Jul 15, 2012 Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars

Perhaps it was a little unfair for me to turn to this book immediately after finishing Edward Abbey's DESERT SOLITAIRE. As in that book, not much really "happens" during the author's tenure as a government-appointed overseer of a stretch of Western wilderness. His love of the place--in this case, the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico--is just as palpable as Abbey's, and he has his moments as a prose stylist, especially while reflecting on the experience of solitude. But I think I expected more to "h...more

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May 30, 2012 Krenner1 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reported tonight on the national news, a 150,000 acre fire in New Mexico's Gila Forest is not yet under control. After reading this book, I wonder who first spotted the fire; who was in the tower. The author spends summers solo in a fire watch tower in the Gila. This book about that solitude, the beauty of the mountain, and his contentment with both is a slow read. You really have to love the mountains and wildlife to love this book. Which I do, and did. Along with his musings, he veers off into...more

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Feb 28, 2012 K rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction-current

In the spring and summer of 2011 the mountains and prairies of the southwest United States burst into flame. Some fires were started by lightning, others were man-made. No matter what started the fires the end result was that large swaths of land became charred wilderness. While fires that started in populated areas were easily spotted the fires in more remote areas were harder to see and therefore to control. The forest service’s first line of defense in these remote areas are the fire lookouts...more In the spring and summer of 2011 the mountains and prairies of the southwest United States burst into flame. Some fires were started by lightning, others were man-made. No matter what started the fires the end result was that large swaths of land became charred wilderness. While fires that started in populated areas were easily spotted the fires in more remote areas were harder to see and therefore to control. The forest service’s first line of defense in these remote areas are the fire lookouts – men and women sitting high up in towers scanning the horizon for telltale smoke and calling it in to the firefighters.

Author Philip Connors gives us a look into this unique job through his personal experiences working as a fire lookout in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico.

For five months (April – August) Connors lived in a small cabin with no electricity, running water, bathroom just yards from his “office”. As he states “My tower is small and spare, seven-by-seven, purely utilitarian – more office than home. It can hold four people standing, assuming they’re not claustrophobic. At fifty-five feet tall, it is one of the highest lookouts still staffed in the Gila.” He goes on to state that “In summary, then, I have a view of spruce-fir high country, ponderosa parkland, pinon-juniper hills, several river valleys, arid grassland mesas, dry arroyos, high-desert scrublands, and the occasional fire scar grown back in aspen and locust.”

Each chapter is a month of his summer and each begins with a quote about fire lookouts or our national forests to give us an understanding on how others saw them. The chapters are filled with his fire lookout job plus he includes some of his experiences and wanderings in the mountains with his dog Alice and the few moments he gets to spend with his wife Martha (who stays in town). But since there can only be so much written about his life as a lookout (most of the time it is just staring out over the mountains) he includes information on other famous fire lookouts and foresters of the past, including Aldo Leopold (who wrote A Sand County Almanac), beat novelist Jack Kerouac, and Norman Maclean (who wrote A River Runs Through It which was made into a well received movie and the fire fighters book Young Men and Fire).

But it is more than a monthly activity journal as the author ruminates about history of fighting forest fires. As he pointed out, he hoped that the book “will offer another view of fire and its place in nature, a view too little glimpsed on our television screens.” Throughout the book he slips in quite a bit of information, almost too much, of the history of fighting forest fires in our nation. While giving us both points of view (whether to fight a fire or not) at times he is so thorough that I feel he could have gotten his point across with a little less “padding”.

The author is very poetic in his writing. This is how he describes his job: “The brutal winds of spring, when gales off the desert gust above seventy miles an hour and the occasional snow squall turns my peak white; the dawning of summer in late May, when the wind abates and the aphids hatch and ladybugs emerge in great clouds from their hibernation; the fires of June, when dry lightning connects with the hills and mesas, sparking smokes that fill the air with the sweet smell of burning pine; the tremendous storms of July, when the radio antenna sizzles like bacon on a griddle and the lightning makes me flinch as if from the threat of a punch, and the blessed indolence of August, when the meadows bloom with wildflowers and the creeks run again, the rains having turned my world different shades of green. I’ve seen lunar eclipses and desert sandstorms and lightning that made my hair stand on end. I’ve seen fires burn so hot they made their own weather. I’ve watched deer and elk frolic in the meadow below me and pine trees explode in a blue ball of smoke. If there’s a better job anywhere on the planet, I’d like to know what it is.”

The book goes quickly except in parts where his thoroughness begins to feel a bit boggy. But his writing did give me a wish to be a fire lookout – to join him in the hunt for both the fire and the quiet seclusion of the fire lookout. As I read this book I just wanted to grab a back pack and a sleeping bag (OK, maybe also a lantern, a few books and my needlepoint) and join the lookout crew for a number of tedious days sparked with some thrilling action.(less)

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Dec 28, 2011 Liz rated it 2 of 5 stars

When I bought this book, I was excited to read it and hoping for insight into solitude and a different way of life. What I got instead was a steaming pile of self-absorption. Connors seems to fancy himself another Kerouac, going off into the wilderness to drink alone, be manly, and have profound experiences—none of which came through in his writing. There was a lot of hero-worship going on in the book, and I get the impression that Connors wants to see himself added to the list of great wilderne...more

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Dec 08, 2011 Zuberino rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, national-parks, nature, wilderness, travel, solitude, fire, mountains, forests, americana, new-mexico, southwest

A two-week wait at my local London library culminated in an email notifying me that Fire Season had finally arrived, there for my taking. It was entirely worth the wait. Every page has passages of lyric prose, Connors' voice more meditative than that of one of his inspirations, Edward Abbey, whose Desert Solitaire this book comes close to matching in its descriptions of the beauty of the West.

In painting an entire season in the Gila, Connors takes us on a tour through time and space - fires in...more

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Aug 21, 2011 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you've ever wondered what it's like or been interested in spending time in a fire tower you owe it to yourself to read Phil Connors book. Heavily endorsed with blurbs by such renowned writers as Barry Lopez and Annie Proulx and rightfully so. Connors book reads much like Ed Abbeys extraordinarily beautiful epic “Desert Solitaire” with strains of Abbeys “favorite” book “Black Sun” for good measure.
Thrown in with the solitude that is life in a fire tower Connors provides the context for what ha...more If you've ever wondered what it's like or been interested in spending time in a fire tower you owe it to yourself to read Phil Connors book. Heavily endorsed with blurbs by such renowned writers as Barry Lopez and Annie Proulx and rightfully so. Connors book reads much like Ed Abbeys extraordinarily beautiful epic “Desert Solitaire” with strains of Abbeys “favorite” book “Black Sun” for good measure.
Thrown in with the solitude that is life in a fire tower Connors provides the context for what has become our national policy of fighting fire, a policy that the author is rightfully ambivalent about – we fight fires to prevent loss of timber which has become a valuable commodity and potentially to prevent damage to homes and even lives of those living near forested areas but as he points out that wasn’t always the case. From his lonely wooden tower where he can see for miles and miles (apologies to Pete Townsend and “The Who” for that one:-) he muses about what would happen to the forest ecology if the fires he spots that start out as wisps of smoke in some remote canyon were just left to burn. Of course, if this were the case he would be w/o a job so he goes on about his fiduciary duty and calls in the fires which are promptly doused with retardant or set upon by fire crews. This of course is only a part time job, one which keeps him apart from his GF back home in Silver City, NM where he spends his winter hours working as a bartender, waiting for the next fire season. At the time the book was published, Connors had spent eight seasons in the tower with potentially more to come. On a personal note, you have to wonder how long one can go on living like this – as a former Forest Circus employee of several seasons myself I admired his conviction and passion for the primacy of the forest and nature in general. As an adult I worried about whether he should have ever left his job with the Wall Street Journal as a copy editor for a job in the forests of southern New Mexico. That aside, Connors is a brilliant writer and I look forward to more of his musings in the future.
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Jul 04, 2011 Ellen Librarian rated it 4 of 5 stars

I think I would have liked this book even if I hadn't read it in the midst of what has to be one of the worst if not THE worst fire season in NM. It's a beautiful meditation on life, wilderness and so many other things - including the role of lookout work in the lives of many fine writers such as Jack Kerouac and Norman MacLean.

Connors also has a lot to say about fire, of course, and as I read this book downwind of the Las Conchas fire, now the biggest ever recorded in NM, I found his perspecti...more

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Jun 04, 2011 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

After reading a glowing review of this book, I was both pleased and surprised to find it on my local library's new book shelf. So, Philip Connors worked as an editor for the Wall Street Journal until he couldn't stand it anymore and September 11th happened. Then he moved to New Mexico where for five months out of the year he has what he considers to be the world's best job. He lives alone in the New Mexico mountains working as a fire spotter for the National Forest Service--which calls the peopl...more

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Apr 23, 2011 Freida rated it 4 of 5 stars

Phillip Connors has spent the last eight spring and summer months in an isolated part of The Gila National Forest helping the National Forest Service keep an eye on forest fires. This book is part history of the landforms, part history of the cultures that settled the area, part history of the National Forest Service and their own connection with forest fires, and part daily confessional of what it is like to live such a solitary life cut off from almost all human interaction.

Lest you think thi...more

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Mar 01, 2011 Michaelsean rated it 5 of 5 stars

Fire Season Field Notes From A Wilderness by Philip Connors was a delightful surprise on many levels. I have a longterm history of loving the southwest and a great appreciation for authors such as Edward Abbey. Mr. Connors follows in the fire lookout footsteps of luminaries such as Mr. Abbey, Jack Kerouac, and Normal Maclean. He has served up a a truly wonderful narrative on life and the affect that man and fire have had in the mountains of the southwest.

Fire Season is basically two narratives i...more

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Feb 03, 2011 Jackie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 5-star, nonfiction, pleasure-reading, formative, work-review-related-reading

This is a beautiful book about a rare man with an even rarer summer job--he's one of the last fire spotters in existence. 5 months of the year he leaves civilization behind, drives 40 miles then hikes 5 more (sometimes having to literally crawl through snow on his first trip up in late April) to a lookout tower and a small cabin and millions of acres of trees, desert, and mountains. On a clear day he can see for 200 miles from his posting. Alice, his dog, is generally his only company other than...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Kristie (fabk) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, audio-books, library, wbc12

This was a really well written memoir on being a fire lookout. It also had a lot of great historical facts and information about Natural resources in general. It would be great for the person who doesn't know very much about natural resource management and conservation. For someone that does, it is a little long winded.
What I liked:
-Having recently read Nora Roberts- Chasing fire. It was interesting to hear more about similar areas, and a job related to what that book was about.
- My fil and gfi...more

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Dec 31, 2011 Grayson D rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone, especially lovers of nature

Fire Season. There's a lot for me to say about this book.

As an agriculture technology student that plans to go into Forestry. Living in Texas, close to where this book takes place. I guess it simply just struck a, common ground with me. A ground very intimate and close to my heart. As a lover of nature and the wild this book has kickstarted me on a habit for wanting to delve deeper into the literary minds of lookouts and nature loving individuals and stories in general.

This book, while it may s...more

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Jun 06, 2011 Andie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This slim book is part memoir, part historical account of the job of "fire lookout", and part analysis of the blunders of human efforts at controlling nature, particularly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Personally, my favorite parts of the book by far were those details Connors' personal experience as a look out. The lookout's season is April through August, and the book is divided up into five sections, each surrounding a month and based off journals he wrote about his activitie...more

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Nov 22, 2011 Ray rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was curious about this book from the start, wondering if there'd be enough to write about when the job is to be isolated for several months, alone, in the woods, isolated, looking at the same mountains and trees day after day, looking for smoke or fire. I found something hypnotic about it though, soothing and calming as Connors described his activities, or lack of activities, during his stint as a wilderness lookout. Connors also brings in a few stories about some of the significant forest fir...more

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Aug 25, 2011 Bettie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: radio-4, summer-2011, published-2011, autobiography-memoir, conflagration, north-americas, environmental-issues, nonfiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 04, 2011 Chris McClinch rated it 4 of 5 stars

A memoir of a season spent as a fire lookout in New Mexico. The job of a fire lookout is one of incredible solitude: eight hours a day, for roughly 100 days per season, scanning the horizon for smoke. Some of the great names in 20th century American letters--Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Norman McLean, Edward Abbey--have worked as fire lookouts and done much to craft their prose with the solitude. This book is being advertised to fans of Abbey, and while the book lacks much of Abbey's pugnaciousnes...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Alison Wiley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mr. Connors brought me right into his unique work-world and way of seeing the world in this nonfiction account of watching for fires in remote Southwest wilderness. I felt like I was at his side, which was a great feeling for a city-dwelling wilderness-lover like myself. A former Wall Street Journal editor, he loves solitude, wilderness and also his wife, who visits him periodically during fire season, and with whom he lives the rest of the year. I learned from this artfully crafted book that ca...more

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May 28, 2011 Kate Lawrence rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: environment, memoir

By the time I reached the last page, I absolutely loved this, but early on I considered not finishing it. In the first couple of chapters, the author describes at length the topography he views as a lookout, and the Forest Service's fire suppression policy, its history, politics, and how it has changed. Too much detail on such subjects for me; give me more about the sunsets, lightning storms, wildlife, past and present quirky characters, and the author's background and ponderings. If you need to...more

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Oct 02, 2010 Will Byrnes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, science, nature, books-of-the-year-2011, brain-candy

Philip Connors tried his hand at a number of jobs and did pretty well. But his true love was the outdoors, particularly the remote outdoors. So, when an opportunity presented itself for him to spend half a year in a fire tower in remotest New Mexico, he dropped his reportorial gig at the Wall Street Journal and headed southwest. He knew a fair bit about the outdoors before beginning, from his Minnesota upbringing, and learned even more on the job. He kept on learning as he re-upped for one more...more

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Nov 13, 2011 Mark Stevens rated it 3 of 5 stars

"The Fire Season" is a flashpoint for mini-essays and background on life and wilderness in the American West. It's sold as a "life as a fire lookout" tale but for the most part Philip Connors follows trails of breadcrumbs off in dozens of different directions. He's a smoke watcher, not a fire fighter.

Some of the material will be familiar if you've read Timothy Egan's "The Big Burn" or, say, Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire." There's a long section on Aldo Leopold and another on Jack Kerouac. Th...more

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Nov 27, 2012 Liza rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-non-fiction, dpl-book-clubs

Read for a library book club.

Many people spend their free time lounging around, watching movies, reading, etc. Some people go to a national park, sit in a small, small building miles from anyone, and spend the entire day looking for smoke.

Fire Season is a surprising account of Connors' experience as a lookout in the southwest and what exactly it's like to be isolated, responsible for reporting possible fires, and how the park service responds (some fires are just allowed to burn, others put hund...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Martin Cerjan rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book never really grabbed me, but it grew on me. I thought the end of the book was the best--and some very fine writing. For my money, the best book about fire is still Young Men and Fire--which I would recommend in a heartbeat to anyone with an interest. I don't mean to be too rough on Connors though. He seems like a nice enough guy and a solid writer. Maybe I'm just a little fatigued by the memoir form. I maybe would have structured the book a bit differently, but that's what happens with...more

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Sep 21, 2012 KatieSuzanne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook, favorites

He’s not Edward Abbey, or Jack Kerouac, or John Muir, but he is an everyday sort of guy who I could relate to and who’s experiences as a fire lookout were what I imagine mine would be if I could ever get up the courage to quit my desk job and go work doing stuff like this. He admires the same authors I do and has the same views on life I find myself developing as I get older. Sometimes I almost felt I was discussing some of my favorite books with another enthusiast. “I’d rather my remnants soar...more

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Mar 23, 2011 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone interested in ecology, lovers of solitude

Shelves: personal_memoir_biography, arc-edition

Five miles from the nearest road, sitting on top of what is essentially a lightning rod with a roof – that's not something most of us could tolerate, much less crave. Something Mr. Connors chose to do for several summers in his job as a fire lookout. (Something that I, being a bit of a loner, would probably like. Except for the lightning. And the snakes. And the dead mice stuck to the floor when the cabin is first opened for the season.)

Despite all the vitriol we've directed at it, despite all t...more Five miles from the nearest road, sitting on top of what is essentially a lightning rod with a roof – that's not something most of us could tolerate, much less crave. Something Mr. Connors chose to do for several summers in his job as a fire lookout. (Something that I, being a bit of a loner, would probably like. Except for the lightning. And the snakes. And the dead mice stuck to the floor when the cabin is first opened for the season.)

Despite all the vitriol we've directed at it, despite all the technology we've deployed to fight it, wildfire still erupts in the union of earth and sky, in the form of a lightning strike to a tree, and there is nothing we can do to preempt it. The best we can do, in a place like Gila, is have a human stationed in a high place to cry out the news. If this gets to sounding borderline mystical, as if I've joined the cult of the pyromaniacal, all I can say is: guilty as charged.

What makes this book even better is that Alice, a rescued dog, gets to spend her summers there too. Initially, Mr. Connors doesn't want to get a dog.

Experience with the dogs of family and friends indicated they were odoriferous, overbearing beasts, dedicated to immediate gratification of whatever urge bubbled up in their tiny little brains, their owners perversely in need of unconditional love and mindless diversion.

Adopt they do nevertheless, as a compromise for a wife who will tolerate his solitary job away from her all summer.

Now that Alice has been in our lives for three years, I see her for what she truly is: an odoriferous, overbearing beast, dedicated to immediate gratification of whatever urge bubbles up in her tiny little brain, and a reliable and even comforting source of unconditional love and mindless diversion.

Also, she's pretty cute.

This is more than just a memoir about sitting on top of a lookout tower. It is also about the history and changing view toward wildfire management. It is about ecology, and how we have encouraged nature to get so out of balance. It is about cattle grazing on public land, their ranchers paying a pittance while the cattle destroy the natural habitat. I say this all as a complete hypocrite, living in a forested area with lots of lightning and careless people, due for a natural fire and wanting it to be stopped immediately if (when) it comes.

Two stories about specific animals were deeply troubling – one that the author related, about a wolf and her pups. The other about a fawn that the author, in his ignorance while trying to do the right thing, caused.

And I even learned a new word: azimuth. Always a plus for me. The book was entertaining and informative, and I think the time I spent reading it was well spent.

The quotes may have changed in the published edition. Thank you to ECCO for giving me an uncorrected proof for review.(less)

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Feb 21, 2012 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this in one day - perfect antidote to some not great books I've been having to read for various book clubs. Really good discussion of the history and practice of fire lookoutry (his words, not mine), the history of wildlife conservation, fire suppression, public (and not-so-public) use of public lands, and some introductions to Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold for the uninitiated. All around a great book - perfect balance between private musings on nature and solitude and fact...more

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