The Filson Journal

In part of our continuing partnership with the NFF, each year, a team of our staff helps renovate a historic fire lookout. Last year we headed out to an 88-year-old...

A Short History of U.S. Fire Lookouts

Fire lookouts have long held an important service to our forests and communities. While technology advancements help make spotting fires easier, 150+ fire lookouts are still actively manned in the...

Profiles

Trent Peterson: The Way Forward

During a trip to the Sierra Nevada's in 2015 he first set his eyes on the mountains he now calls home while scouting the area for a planned horse traverse...

The Woman on the Mountain: Christine Estrada

Christine Estrada, a fire lookout, having visited 93 of the remaining lookouts across Washington State, works tirelessly during fire season to spot, report and communicate with fire teams on the...

We Helped Restore a Forest Service Lookout Tower That Was Almost Consumed by Flames

A team of eager and passionate Filson employees, together with the National Forest Foundation, were wrapping up a restoration project at First Butte lookout tower, the fourth tower our team...

A Short History of Helicopter Logging

The practice of helicopter logging is still employed in parts of the world today, including the US and Canada. Often the USFS will use it to thin forest lands in...

Something Worth Saving: Fire Lookout Restored by Logging Town Community

As you climb up the tower steps, layers of jagged peaks within Washington’s Cascade Range emerge in every direction. Below, wild river valleys carve through the sea of forests around...

Filson x White’s Boots: Unfailing Quality Built on Legacy

Modeled after the boots worn by USFS hotshots, Filson and white’s boots have teamed up to build a limited-edition boot: the fire hybrid. Manufactured in Spokane by white’s using our...

History of America's Wild Horses

The wild horses of the West have occupied the minds of people here since they were reintroduced to the North American continent by Spanish explorers in the 16th century. These...

Having achieved certification last Veterans Day, the Lakeview Veterans Hotshots are the only Interagency Hotshot Crew in the country that prioritizes enlisting and developing former military personnel. From front lines...

ERNESTO ALVARADO - FIRE SCIENTIST

Ernesto Alvarado is a biologist and Research Associate Professor at the University of Washington. With over 27 years in the field, his current research covers a variety of topics, from...

Filson and The Forest Service

Filson and the U.S. Forest Service share unbreakable ties to our wildlands and a relationship that dates over a century. Since the 1950s, Filson garments have been in-use as field...

THE CHAINSAW

The single most important invention affecting logging was the chainsaw of 1935. Although it was not invented in Oregon, it was perfected there in 1947 by lumberjack Joseph Cox. While...

Smokey's Steps to Putting Out a Fire

A campfire can be of the best parts of camping, or provide necessary warmth to hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts. Just don’t forget your responsibility to maintain and extinguish it...

BARB WHITEMAN - A LIFE DEDICATED TO FIGHTING WILDLAND FIRES

Barb grew up on the Crow Indian Reservation in Eastern Montana. When she was not in school, she spent untold hours roaming the Big Horn Mountains near her home hunting,...

BIA: INTER-AGENCY HOTSHOTS - NATIVE AMERICAN FIRE CREWS

NATIVE AMERICAN FIRE CREWS were officially formed in 1910—known as the Division of Forestry, a part of the BIA—and tasked with protecting tribal timber holdings. As one might imagine, these...

THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS.

THE Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a depression-era work-relief program that put millions of America’s young men to work on important conservation projects. Established in 1933 by executive order, the...

MALHEUR RAPPEL CREW

The Malheur Rappel Crew primarily fights fires in the Pacific Northwest (Region 6) but team members can be dispatched anywhere there is a need - even globally. The standards to...

Q&A WITH A HOTSHOT

We sit down with Jeremiah Coke, Squad Leader with a hotshot crew in the Pacific Northwest, to learn a thing or two about his 17 years in fire.

WHAT IS A WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER

Wildfires across the U.S. have become increasingly large and uncharacteristically extreme, due to factors including climate change and unhealthy forests. This puts communities, habitat, and watersheds at risk. It also...

PHOENIX CREW 1

Meet one of the most unique teams partnering with the USFS - an Arizona Fire Crew made primarily of post-release inmates.

BEQUI LIVINGSTON - WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING PIONEER

IN 1988, Bequi Livingston became the first woman ever recruited by the New Mexico-based Smokey Bear Hotshots for its elite wildland firefighting crew. It had taken Livingston nine years to...

KYLE MILLER - PHOTOGRAPHER

A wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service and Wyoming Hotshots crew member, Kyle Miller is not a photographer — just a guy who is drawn to fighting wildfire on...

How to Pack Your Line Gear

When you're on a fire line, everything that matters is on your back. You may be required to haul 70 lbs. in and out of a remote spot. How you...

JUMP TRAINING REDDING, CALIFORNIA

Smokejumpers are specially trained wildland firefighters — and their training is grueling. Often the leading edge of a wildland firefight, smokejumpers parachute out of airplanes to reach fires before they...

INSIDE THE FIRE LAB

The U.S. Forest Service’s Fire Sciences Laboratory, Fire Lab for short, is the only facility on earth dedicated to studying wildfire through experiments in a chamber. The public rarely gets...

JIGGER JOHNSON - USFS PIONEER

ALBERT LEWIS JOHNSON, ALSO KNOWN AS JIGGER JOHNSON, was a legendary logging foreman, trapper and fire warden for the U.S. Forest Services. Jigger’s rugged attitude and fearless determination was that...

Monument Peak Lookout Tower

In 2019 Filson partnered with the National Forest Foundation (NFF) to restore Montana's Monument Peak Lookout in Montana; originally built in 1936, using a classic L-4 tower and cabin plans from 1933.

MAN BEAST MACHINE

In the beginning, the USFS fought forest fires using animals such as horses and pigeons. Horses provided transportation of man and materials, while pigeons afforded timely communication. From horseback to...

How to Become a Wildland Firefighter

Interested in becoming a Protector of the Forest? Learn when and where to apply.

How To's

How to Rent a Forest Service Cabin

If you’re looking for a vacation rental that is slightly more adventurous than usual, it’s worth looking into renting one of the USFS fire lookout towers or backcountry cabins. Learn...

Where There's Smoke: Utah's Alta Hotshots

Interagency hotshot crews comprise elite ground-force wildland firefighters who are the first responders to wildfires in any jurisdiction of the United States. Based just outside of Salt Lake City, the...

Faces in the Fire

This season, Utah's Alta Hotshots roster is made up of 23 adrenaline-seeking conservationists ranging in age from 20 to 38. They come from all over the United States to be...

How To's

Filson x Smokey: Campfire Safety

According to the USFS, 63,546 human-caused wildfires burned nearly 5 million acres across the U.S. in 2017. It is important to remember that no precaution is too small when it...

The Life of a Smokejumper: Wait. Jump. Fight. Repeat

When it’s fire season, you don’t buy concert tickets. You don’t make dates. You miss your kid’s birthday. When you’re at the top of the jump list, you don’t go...

USFS: Fighting Fire With Fire

There’s a wall of fire 12 feet away. Ponderosa pines burn to a roar. Like a jet engine ramping up for takeoff. Flames ignite branches & tufts of needles on...

Region 6: Fly Fishing's Unlikely Benefit to Children in Need

The Fly Fishing Collaborative may be the new model for social change. Based in Portland, Oregon, the organization uses donated guided trips to build sustainable fish-and-produce farms in developing countries. This...

Region 6: Understanding the Land Through Hunting

Last fall, Bruce McGlenn started his hunting school in Central Washington. It’s exactly what the sport is in need of: a modern, holistic approach to harvesting wild meat.

Region 6: Planting Beavers, Raising Waters

Beaver ponds store a lot of water. Millions of gallons. And scientists are now realizing that reintroducing the animals to struggling streams is a way to buck a drying trend....

Region 6: Giving Rivers Back to Fish

Traditional Yakama beliefs say the Creator put salmon in the rivers so that humans could live. Today, the tribe is returning the favor with a restoration program that is on...

Region 6: The Last of the Fire Watchers

Bill Austin is one of the lucky few to have the job of manning a fire lookout tower. And as a veteran of more than 25 seasons of scanning the...

In Pursuit of Wildfire: Capturing California's Harshest Forest Fires with Stuart Palley

When a wildfire erupts, Californian photojournalist Stuart Palley runs towards the blaze, not away. With an unbending eagerness for capturing the lives of those who protect and maintain our forests, the...

Washington State Fire Lookout Project with Kyle Johnson

Kyle Johnson is a 29 year old editorial and commercial photographer hailing from the Pacific Northwest. He strives to create images that are intriguing and classically executed. Kyle’s aesthetic pairs...

From The Archives: Man of the Woods, 1951

Photo and Story courtesy of Sam McJunkin."My father, Samuel McJunkin, in 1951 after a forest fire fighting effort in the Cascade mountain range in Washington State. He worked for the...

Trade Stories: Jason Ramos, Smokejumper

Jason Ramos has devoted 25 years of his life to the fire service. Now a full-fledged smokejumper working out of Winthrop, Washington, Jason has learned to expect the unexpected everyday....

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