Final Rating: 3/5
As storm clouds gather across the north, a watchful eye sits ever vigilant, waiting, surveying, for the spark that ignites nature’s fury. Set at several fire towers in the Yukon and Alberta, director Tova Krentzman’s Fire Tower illustrates life fifty feet above the forest at some of the 110 fire lookouts across the country. These men and women are responsible for spotting 40% of wildfires, and an important resource in acting quickly to minimize the damage they inflict.
One thing is made evident from the get go: the lifestyle certainly isn’t for everyone, as the seclusion weighs on even the strongest of minds. The doc follows several of these adventurous men and women, from Dianne, a sixteen year veteran of her tower, (23 years in total) Bryan and his various musical instruments, the stoic Markus, to Kim espousing her love of nature, Troy and his pet fly Bruno, Robert and his dogs, the personalities are each their own.
One thing that’s espoused by each is that you need to be able to cope with the lonely hours the job demands, and everyone finds their own way to do so: whether its music, pets, cooking, artwork, or studying nature as the area is full of bears, moose, deer and untold numbers of birds.
It also epitomizes how difficult marinating a relationship or having a family could be given the nature of the work and living in solitude for months at a time, though as at least one voiced, they’re not so inclined anyway. As Kim notes, there’s also the dichotomy between partnership and one’s individual freedom in the lifestyle. Dianne reflects that her freedom is doing what she wants, when she wants, and this mind set is likely part of one’s ability to do such work.
Much of the focus on the film revolves around this narrative, and the human side of these individuals rather than the logistics of what happens once their work is set into action. They are several shots of raging fires, or water bombers, but things are mostly set around their day to day lives.
Much of their responsibility is tracking storms across the Boreal Forest, as the majority of these fires are caused by lightning strikes. Like sailors of old, they call in various coordinates, casting a sharp eye over the vast distance with telescopes or binoculars. However, since 2016 one fifth have been decommissioned and replaced with cameras. With our increasing reliance on technology, it’s likely only to increase.
It’s evident based on how long these positions have been held that this type of emergency is as old as civilization itself, but as noted, it’s the frequency and intensity with which they’re now occurring that’s of concern. The vibrant beauty of the picturesque forest quickly morphs into a scene cut straight from a horror movie, the apocalyptic nature of the landscape left scarred in its wake serving as evidence. Several of them relate stories of close calls or being overrun with smoke from distant fires reflecting the dangerous reality of their work and this force of nature.
While this doc has some lovely shots, and does a good job of presenting the common theme of isolation and coping in any way you can, among its subjects, much like the towers themselves, it feels compacted. It doesn’t present any particular overarching narrative or arc, as much of the run time is presented with the individuals espousing how they deal with the position and what it means to them. We don’t get to see much about their interactions with anyone else involved in the firefighting industry itself, which is perhaps a way of illustrating how lonely it is. It’s merely a fleeting glimpse, all be an insightful one, into their world.
Fire Tower was seen during the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival. Thank you to The Taro Group for the screener. Check out our Hot Docs wrap up podcast.
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