AP Story

FIRE SPOTTER DOESN'T LIKE CROWDS PERCHED IN A TOWER ON MOUNT AGAMENTICUS, DAVE HILTON ENJOYS BEING A RELIC OF THE PAST

From his perch 65 feet above the top of Mount Agamenticus in Maine's southernmost corner, Dave Hilton gazes across the treetops on a cloudless June day as a fire radio crackles in the background.
He freezes in one position, his sunglasses fixed on a point west of Portsmouth, N.H., where a tiny trail of smoke curls upward from the green landscape.
After using a brass instrument to get a bearing and pinpoint the site, Hilton is on the radio to report what he has seen. But the would-be smoke proves to be white dust, probably rising from an unpaved road.
``Hey, if we see a smoke we're going to report it,'' says Hilton, now scanning the horizon from snow-topped Mount Washington to Portland, from one of the few fire towers that remain active.
Just as radar and satellites have relegated lighthouse keepers to the pages of history, planes and tight budgets have turned hundreds of fire towers across the country into forgotten monuments to the past.
One exception is the tower atop the 692-foot Mount Agamenticus, where Hilton and others volunteer hundreds of hours and which he has helped to preserve. The York tower is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Hilton is one of 400 members of the Forest Fire Lookout Association, which promotes the preservation of lookout towers and their history in 26 states, Canada and Australia.
For Hilton, 36, the attraction to fire towers is part nostalgia, part public service, and part pleasure in being alone in a serene and beautiful setting.
``I'm a solitary person. I don't like crowds,'' Hilton said as a gentle, warm breeze passed through the open windows of the 8-by-8-foot cab on the tower. ``It's very peaceful, watching the turkey vultures and hawks.
``When the wind goes through these guy wires and plays its own little song, it's neat,'' said Hilton.
There's also the satisfaction of helping forest rangers and firefighters when he spots ``a smoke'' from his loft, which was threatened with closure by a state funding shortage in 1991.
He recalled proudly when his teen-age son Nick, who spends hours with his father in the York tower, spotted smoke off in the distance. It turned out to be from the burning deck on a house whose owner was asleep inside.
In his years as a volunteer, the elder Hilton has spotted structure, vehicle, chimney and woods fires. He is especially committed to putting in long hours when the forest fire danger rises, providing backup for state rangers who fly over the forests which cover 90 percent of Maine.
``Talk about getting a rush, stopping a forest fire,'' said Shirley Goodrich, 67, of Springvale, who volunteers at the Mount Hope fire tower in Sanford with her husband Keith. ``It's really satisfying, it really is.''
While watch tower duties are a retirement avocation for the Goodriches, they have been an attraction for Hilton ``since I was able to walk.'' He recalls climbing the steep steps to the York tower to help the full-time watchman, John Chamblee of Wells.
His interest in radio communications deepened Hilton's interest in fire towers. At any one time, two or three radios are crackling away in the York tower while it is manned by Hilton.
Hilton, whose regular job is dispatching 911 calls, keeps a scrapbook full of photos and postcards of fire towers across the state and region. Some of the pictures show the structures standing tall and strong during their heyday, but more recent pictures show dilapidated remains, some lying on their sides in tall weeds.
``Sometimes the watchmen would come in in the spring and go out in the fall,'' said Hilton, who is putting the final touches on a book, ``From York to the Allagash: Forest Fire Lookouts of Maine.'' The book will include 250 photos and recollections of retired denizens of the lonely outposts.
Watchmen lived in cottages or cabins that sometimes were in the shadows of towers or might be a considerable hike away. They sometimes encountered wild animals on the ground and had to scale steep ladders rather than steps to get aloft.
``The big thing was electrical storms,'' said Hilton.
Maine's first forest fire tower - which Hilton believes was the nation's first - was a log structure built atop Squaw Mountain in 1905. The keeper had to run up and down the mountain near Greenville to report anything suspicious.
As more towers were built, telephone lines were strung to them, and radio contacts were well-established when as many as 110 towers dotted the state's woodlands, said Hilton.
They proved their worth 50 years ago when fires in southern and coastal Maine raced through tinderbox forests in what is remembered as one of the biggest disasters in state history.
Then the decline began as ranger planes came into use and towers were taken out of service. The end finally came in 1991 when the state, facing a critical budget shortage, decided it could no longer afford to keep any towers open.
Hilton and other volunteers immediately took over maintenance and staffing at the Mount Agamenticus tower, so it never went out of commission.
PHOTO: b&w Associated Press photo by Pat Wellenbach\ Dave Hilton takes a compass reading while watching for forest fires in a 65-foot-high lookout tower on top of Mount Agamenticus in York. Hilton is one of 400 members of the Forest Fire Lookout Association, which promotes the preservation of lookout towers.