Fire on the mountain; Fire towers of the Catskills and their vigilant observers

Posted 8/21/12

THE CATSKILLS — Martin (Marty) Podskoch is afraid of heights, but that didn’t stop him from writing “Fire Towers of the Catskills: Their History and Lore.” Fascinated with these relics of our …

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Fire on the mountain; Fire towers of the Catskills and their vigilant observers

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THE CATSKILLS — Martin (Marty) Podskoch is afraid of heights, but that didn’t stop him from writing “Fire Towers of the Catskills: Their History and Lore.” Fascinated with these relics of our past, he visited all of the fire towers in the Catskills region and talked to the fire tower observers and their families. So how does he get to the top of a fire tower? “I just close my eyes and hold on to someone’s shoulders and follow them up,” Podskoch said.

A fire tower is a large structure on the top of a mountain, like stairs enclosed in a grid. A fire observer was someone who lived at the top of the mountain in a cabin and climbed to the top of the fire tower, called the cab, every day to scan the mountains for signs of wild fire.

The book features 23 towers, and each one gets a few pages with photographs in which Podskoch writes about its history, lore, observers and directions to get there. Currently, five towers are open to the public. They are Balsam Lake, Hunter, Overlook, Red Hill and Tremper.

The ways in which observers reported a fire and how it was tamed changed throughout the years as new technology evolved. For example, in the 1920s, the fire observer would notify the local ranger and fire warden by telephone. From the book: “Each warden and ranger carried the following equipment to the fire: two Indian tanks, four canvas pails, two fire rakes, two fiber brooms, an axe, and two short-handled shovels.” In 1947, a fire was fought with a two-engine Grumman amphibious airplane nicknamed “The Goose.” The technology to spot and fight fire became so advanced that by the 1970s air surveillance began to replace the need for fire towers or observers. Towers began closing down, and by 1990 the last one closed, at Red Hill. However, beginning in 1997, there was a community-organized effort to save and restore the fire towers in the Catskills.

Podskoch became interested in fire towers one snowy October day when he and a friend hiked to the top of Hunter Mountain. By the time they got to the top of the mountain, three or four inches of snow had fallen. They saw smoke coming from the observer’s cabin and “a little guy came out and said, ‘hey guys, wanna come in and get warmed up?’” Podskoch and his friend went inside and the observer told them stories. He was a retired fireman from New York City who had returned to his hometown of Tannersville to be a fire observer. He said it was the best job he ever had.

Podskoch got to thinking, “There must be other stories of observers and rangers about fire towers,” and he mentioned the idea to a publisher from Purple Mountain Press. “In 1997, 10 years later, the publisher gave me a call and said, ‘they are trying to save the towers. How would you like to write about it?’”

“I didn’t really know what to do, but over a three-year period I searched the towns, talked to the rangers, gathered their stories, and started writing newspaper stories about a particular town that had a tower. And people would call me up and tell me more stories. With that, I had my first book published, and I was so excited to be an author.”

Among the interesting stories Podskoch tells in the book is one about the marriage of Carolyn Yantz, one of the youngest woman fire observers in the state, to forest ranger Peter Fish. The wedding ceremony took place during their lunch break, at the top of the fire tower on Sky Top Mountain on the Lake Mohonk Mountain House property, near New Paltz, NY. Carolyn quickly changed from her tan observer’s shirt into a light-green dress and the couple wed. Or there’s the story of a fire observer who would climb the tower on the outside, like a monkey, rather than take the steps (and make it up faster). Podskoch met him at an observers’ gathering when the man was about 60 years old. “I said ‘John, it’s hard to believe you could climb that tower like you said,’” Podskoch said. “And he said, ‘Well here, I’ll show you.’ And believe it or not, he climbed up that tower.” For more stories, well, you’ll just have to read the book. Or maybe climb a fire tower and have a story of your own.

[Marty Podskoch will host an author’s talk about his book “Fire Towers of the Catskills: Their History and Lore” at the Time and the Valleys Museum in Grahamsville, NY on Saturday, October 25 at 2 p.m. Attendees receive free admission to the museum’s exhibitions. Signed books will be available for sale. For more information, call 845/985-7700 or visit www.timeandthevalleysmuseum.org.]

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