Province removes Woodridge fire lookout tower, residents sad to see it go

Bruce Therrien spent his teenage summers as the first line of defence against wildfires .

The now 60-year-old Sandilands resident was one of many locals near Woodridge who manned its lone fire lookout tower. For decades, the tower was the only way people could see wildfires before it turned into raging blazes.

“I thought it was a privilege to be up there and spot fires so they wouldn’t get out of hand, and I’d call it in right away, whatever I would see, because people’s lives are in danger,” Therrien told The Carillon.

But on Nov. 12, the province removed the tower, with residents in the Rural Municipality of Piney disappointed in losing the local landmark it became.

“It was a nice landmark for the community. That was the only tower standing right now in Woodridge. So it’s sad that it’s gone,” Therrien said.

The unused tower was taken down due to concerns about people climbing, a provincial spokesperson said in an email. It was first built around 1960 and hasn’t operated since 2010.

“Previous efforts to restrict access to the structure have not proven to be effective,” the spokesperson said.

Therrien worked in the tower for multiple summers during the 1980s and early 2000s.

Before the shift to modern satellite imaging and other technology, Therrien was only armed with a compass and a pair of binoculars when locating fires from the tower. He would sometimes spend up to 12-hours-a-day in the tower when fire risks were high.

From the tower, he could see 20 miles in all directions on a clear day. Sometimes Therrien said he would see smoke, call it in, and get told the plume was from the U.S. side of the border.

In between locating fires, he passed the time listening to AM radio, reading books and chatting with local berry and mushroom pickers walking by.

With the tower gone, he hopes to see a monument to mark its place and honour those who served protecting the community.

“I had an uncle who worked on the tower, and, you know, that’s a generational thing. When you grow up in the country, you appreciate that you’re doing a good job for your community,” Therrien said.

There are roughly 10 fire lookout towers remaining in Manitoba, according to the province. They were first used to detect fires in the 1930s.

When hearing the Woodridge tower was taken down, Manitoba Historical Society head researcher Gordon Goldsborough was surprised it was still standing.

He said the province has left few towers in place because modern technology made towers obsolete and it could pose a safety concern when there’s no staff.

“They were the standard way that the government monitored fires in the province. But it’s been the case for the last, I don’t even know how long, but it’s certainly a couple of decades, they’ve been taking them all down,”Goldsborough said.

He understands why residents would be upset now that it’s gone because its been a key feature for the community.

“It stands above the forest, and so you can see it from miles away. It’s one of the most obvious features on the landscape,” he said.

The Woodridge tower is one of the last easily accessible fire lookouts in the province because the others are in remote locations, Goldsborough said.

Through his research, Goldsborough found fires were first detected by Manitoba lookout towers in 1913. He said there were roughly 66 towers built across the province in total.

Locals were often the ones trained to man the towers because having people close people by meant quicker responses in identifying fires, he said.

“The time for response would be so much longer if you had to wait for somebody to travel to a tower,” Goldsborough said “If you’re right there, if you’re in Woodridge, or wherever the tower is, you’re bound to be able to respond more quickly.”

He noted towers would often alert each other about fires and communicate by radio, telephone and even carrier pigeons.

If a fire was spotted, the person in the tower would take measurements on the location and relay the information to other towers so it could be triangulated, he said. Once the fire was confirmed, then crews could be sent out to put it out.

Piney councillor Ken Prociw sees the tower as part of the area’s history, and it’s disappointing to lose the landmark.

He said he’s seen people climbing the tower, removing the door to expose the ladder running to the top.

It makes sense for the province to remove the tower if it’s for liability and safety reasons, but there wasn’t any communication given to residents or municipal officials for why it came down, Prociw said, noting he only received a provincial memo the day it was taken down.

The tower became a symbol for Woodridge, with it included on the Woodridge Community Hall’s mural.

He said Piney and Woodridge had “piles” of fire lookout towers scatter throughout the area.

“It’s history. It provided work opportunities for individuals within the community. So when people look at it, it’s a reminder of the past, and now it’s gone,” Prociw said.

The space where the tower stood was part of Woodridge Provincial Park, and it’s still used as a snowmobile staging area, picnic spot and geocache zone, he said.