AI-powered cameras are the newest thing in fire detection on Arizona’s Coconino National Forest. Some greet the technology with optimism. But others worry about the future of the HUMAN fire lookouts who have kept watch for decades.

The job of a fire lookout sometimes runs in family lines. That’s how it was for Jane Croxen, whose grandfather was the first lookout posted on Arizona’s national forests, so the family stories say. "It's sort of addictive," she says of the job. "It kind of gets into a person's blood and their soul."

Wind gusts through the open windows of her fire tower, perched thirty feet off the ground. Besides that and the crackle of the radio, the only sound is the ticking of the clock. "It’s a beautiful, unique job," Croxen says, "and not many of us have the privilege of

See Full Page