Scattered thunderstorms early, then becoming clear after midnight. Low around 60F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..
Scattered thunderstorms early, then becoming clear after midnight. Low around 60F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Steps leading from Carstensen’s campsite to the Diamond Point Lookout 6,384 feet above sea level, Aug. 5, 2022.
Dee Carstensen and her loyal companion, Smokey, share a sweet moment in the Diamond Point Lookout cabin, Aug. 5, 2022.
The Diamond Point Lookout sign and just behind it, the original cabin which is listed as a National Historic Landmark, August 5, 2022.
An Osborne Fire Finder is inside of each fire lookout tower. Lookouts use it to locate possible wildfires in the forest, August 5, 2022.
Carstensen shows off her 25-year anniversary plaque, awarded in 2005 at the Diamond Point Lookout Tower, August 5, 2022. She hopes to retire in 2029 after 50 years of service with the Forest Service.
Steps leading from Carstensen’s campsite to the Diamond Point Lookout 6,384 feet above sea level, Aug. 5, 2022.
Dee Carstensen and her loyal companion, Smokey, share a sweet moment in the Diamond Point Lookout cabin, Aug. 5, 2022.
The Diamond Point Lookout sign and just behind it, the original cabin which is listed as a National Historic Landmark, August 5, 2022.
An Osborne Fire Finder is inside of each fire lookout tower. Lookouts use it to locate possible wildfires in the forest, August 5, 2022.
Carstensen shows off her 25-year anniversary plaque, awarded in 2005 at the Diamond Point Lookout Tower, August 5, 2022. She hopes to retire in 2029 after 50 years of service with the Forest Service.
Hummingbirds of iridescent green, fuchsia, and copper zip around a feeder dangling from the Diamond Point Lookout tower railing, 30 feet above ground. Three more feeders hang from the original Diamond Point cabin, which is listed as a National Historic Landmark. Originally built in the mid-1930s, the cabin was used to house the lookout watchers, individuals who survey the surrounding forest during fire season, looking for wisps of smoke indicating a possible wildfire.
The Diamond Point Lookout, at 6,384 feet, is one of seven strategically located fire lookout towers in Arizona’s 2.9-million-acre Tonto National Forest.
The 12-foot by 12-foot lookout cabin, atop the steel tower’s 30-foot frame, is Dee Carstensen’s office and home to a collection of plants, flowers, some 50 hungry hummingbirds and Smokey, Dee’s constant canine companion. She watches the weather and spots for smoke from possible wildfires, both human and lightning caused. From the lookout, she also has watched generations of elk, javelina, bears, eagles, orioles, hawks, and ravens moving on the ground and in the skies around Diamond Point Lookout. The view stretches for more than 100 miles.
For 35 years, Carstensen has been watching for wildfire starts in the Diamond Point portion of the Tonto National Forest, just east of Payson. From April through September, Carstensen, with binoculars in hand and a two-way radio on her hip, surveys the landscape, looking for smoke rising above the pines. During fire season, 12 hours a day, six days a week, she hikes up from her RV to the base of the lookout, up three sets of steep stairs and at the top, pushes up a “trap door” part of the floor and the only entrance to the lookout. Smokey is never far behind.
Lookout furnishings are sparse: a desk, table, two chairs, a plush doggie bed, and a two-way King radio connecting the lookout to a dispatcher at the Phoenix Interagency Dispatch Center in Mesa. An Osborne Fire Finder occupies the center of the room. Designed more than 100 years ago, the Fire Finder gives Carstensen location and distance information when smoke rises above the forest canopy. Each day, weather and individual smoke reports are documented, and after three decades in the lookout, she knows the difference between a campfire and a wildfire.
“Campsite campfires generally send up smoke as they start. The smoke dissipates once the campfire settles,” said Carstensen.
Carstensen began working with the U.S. Forest Service in the 1980s. Her first year as a seasonal employee, she worked with the recreation crew cleaning and maintaining campgrounds. Other seasonal assignments included marking trees with a timber crew and building and preserving trails in the rugged Mazatzal Wilderness. Her favorite seasonal job was four years on a fire crew. Assigned to Forest Service engine number 48, Carstensen was fighting fires, learning to drive and operate the engine. She saw firsthand the hard work and danger faced by firefighters and Hotshot crews. That experience, and her time as the Diamond Point Lookout watcher, give her an experienced eye and intuitive sense to inform fire attack crews when weather patterns or other factors around an active wildfire, may endanger the crews and fire operations.
“Every fire has its own character,” said Carstensen. “I spotted the Highline Fire in 2017. It took off fast, growing more than 50 acres in about an hour.”
Over the past three decades, she’s also had her share of non-wildfire experiences in the Diamond Point Lookout. Bears have prowled around her RV parked just below the lookout, inebriated campers try to come up ‘for a visit,’ and once she was shot in the back by a juvenile with a pellet gun.
“It’s all part of the work, you just never know,” says Carstensen.
Drones, however, are becoming a problem.
“They come up to the tower windows and hover, so close, the camera seems to look me in the eye,” Carstensen recounts.
She described a recent incident. A turquoise drone kept buzzing the cabin windows. She spotted the operator parked off to the side of state highway 260. She called the Payson Police Department, and the drone operator was caught. The U.S. Forest Service lookout towers are government property and drones create significant distraction and safety hazard for the lookout watcher.
Soft-spoken, with a quiet nature, Carstensen’s passion for her work runs deep. She can point out every butte, mountain, campground, valley, and landmark within her Diamond Point Lookout purview. In 2005, she received her 25 years of service plaque from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“I would like to hit the 50-year mark in 2029, and retire to a quiet little spot near Gisela,” she said.
An early photo of the Diamond Point Lookout which was listed in the National Historic Lookout Register on July 20, 2022.
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