The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Tom Craven works with his fire-mapping software. photo by Conrad Weiler A new tool for fire lookouts has been undergoing testing this past summer at the Black Butte fire lookout tower.

Located at 6,500 feet on top of Black Butte, the tower gives a panoramic 360-degree view of Central Oregon. For over 70 years lookout towers have used Osbourne fire-finders to report location data information about fires.

Now, with the help of a computer and DragunPlot software, lookouts are integrating spotting with the Osbourne and more precisely "nailing" the location with the computer program.

"It's an extraordinary tool," said tower lookout Glen Corbett, who has been working towers for 20 years. "It will give new lookouts a tool to more accurately report fire locations."

Using the Osbourne fire-finder, inclinometer, and software, the new system triangulates vertical and horizontal data right into the point of the fire.

This information can then be radioed back to the Prineville dispatch center for potential action.

Using 3-D earth series pictures on the Internet allows the fire's location terrain to be viewed at the dispatch center with aerial views and topographic maps.

Tom Craven, GeodesyBase Vice President, has been testing the DragunPlot software for two years in the field and at his Sisters office.

"Our goal has been to have more accurate plotting of fire location. The integration of the DragunPlot software and Osbourne fire- finder allows for this," said Craven.

"Location, location, location, is the name of the fire-fighting game."

Dr. Peter Guth at the U.S. Naval Academy developed the DragunPlot software. Craven and Guth have been testing and perfecting the program here in Central Oregon.

Besides tower operator Corbett, other Camp Sherman area persons involved in field-testing were Kirk Metzger and Dave Blann. Metzger is Corbett's husband and a GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) expert.

Blann flashed mirror signals from various forest locations for tower location spotting and testing effectiveness of the program.

"At night, when you can't see the terrain, you can take a shot on the fire and get a picture of the area right away," said Corbett. "The DragunPlot program is a mechanical aid for more accurately observing the fire in 3-D space."

The veteran tower operator generally climbs Black Butte (two miles up) each day and returns to her Camp Sherman home each night.

"I've probably walked 3,000 miles on my trips to and from the Black Butte tower -- about the same as walking across the United States," she said.

Besides reporting fire locations, the new system allows for storing lightning strike data in a database so that tower operators may examine those areas for several weeks after for potential fire starts.

During testing, GPS information may be obtained from the aerial view maps. The system could be used eventually for location data in search and rescue operations.

Other towers testing the new DragunPlot equipment are located at Lava Butte, Mount Pisgah and Powell Butte and other district centers at Burns and Warm Springs.