A WOMAN AS A FOREST FIRE LOOKOUT 



A 



LL alone, 6,444 feet above sea 

 level, on top of Klamath Peak 

 in Siskiyou County, California, 

 a young woman for months at 

 a time during the prevalence of the 

 forest fire season, did her part, and did 

 it well, in the effort the G vernment is 

 making to preserve the forests of the 

 country from the destructive flames 

 which have for years past caused an 

 average annual property loss of twenty- 

 five million dollars, and cost annually 

 an average of seventy-five human lives. 

 She is Miss Hallie M. Daggett, and 

 she is the only woman lookout employed 

 by the Forest Service. Posted in her 

 small cabin on top of the mountain 

 peak it was her duty to scan the vast 

 forest in every direction as far as she 

 could see by naked eye and telescope 

 by day for smo e, and for the red glare 

 of fire by night, and report the result of 

 her observations by telephone to the 

 main office of the forest patrol miles 

 and miles away. 



Few women would care for such a 

 job, fewer still woiild seek it, and still 

 less would be able to stand the strain of 

 the infinite loneliness, or the roar of the 

 violent storms which sweep the peak, 

 or the menace of the wild beasts which 

 roam the heavily wooded ridges. Miss 

 Daggett, however, not only eagerly 

 longed for the station but secured it 

 after considerabl exertion and now she 

 declares that she enjoyed the life and 

 was intensely interested in the work 

 she had to do. 



Perhaps the call of the wild is in her 

 blood. Her parents are pioneers, her 

 father, John Daggett, having crossed 

 the Isthmus in 1852 and her mother, a 

 mere baby, being taken across the plains 

 from Kentucky the same year. Miss 

 Daggett was born at the Klamath mine, 

 in the shadow of the peak on which the 

 lookout station is perched. She spent 

 most of her early years out of doors 

 riding and tramping over the hills with 

 her brother, so that it was natural that 

 with her inborn love of the forests she 

 should be anxious to take part in the 

 fight which the Forest Service men are 



174 



making for the protection of the forests. 

 Debarred by her sex, however, from 

 the kind of work which most of the 

 Service men are doing she saw no oppor- 

 tunity until lookout stations were 

 established, and then after earnest 

 solicitation secured the place she held 

 so well. 



Some of the Service men predicted 

 that after a few days of life on the peak 

 she would telephone that she was 

 frightened by the loneliness and the 



Miss Hallie M. Daggett, the Young Woman 

 Who Did Efficient Work for the Forest 

 Service as a Forest Fire Lookout 

 ON Klamath Peak, Cali- 

 fornia. 



danger, but she was full of pluck and 

 high spirit, and day after day as her 

 keen eyes ranged the hills which consti- 

 tute ihe Salmon River watershed and 

 as shs mad her daily reports by tele- 

 phone she grew more and more in love 

 with the work. Even when the tele- 

 phone wires wero broken and when for 

 a long time she was cut off from com- 

 munication with the world below she 

 did not lose heart. She not only filled 

 the place with all the skill which a 

 trained man could have hhown but she 



