Lompa protects his home country

Tony Lompa takes a sighting through his fire finder at the look-out on Henkle Butte. Lompa spotted the start of the Booth and Bear fires last summer. This year has been less dramatic for the veteran fire spotter. photo by Jim Fisher Robert "Tony" Lompa has a job many would envy.

He protects the country he loves from devastating wildfires from a front row seat to some of the best scenery in Oregon. Since 1997, Lompa has spent summers as the forest lookout on Henkle Butte, three miles northeast of Sisters.

From this small cinder cone only 3,412 feet in elevation, Lompa overlooks almost all of the Sisters area including forest subdivisions, isolated homes, ranches and timberlands valued at millions of dollars.

From the Cascades Mountains to the west to the Deschutes River country to the east, from the Warm Springs Indian Reservation to the north to Broken Top and Tam McArthur Rim to the south -- Lompa is responsible for early detection of wildfires and illegal burns.

In a mild year, he may report from 20 to 25 fires. That number can double if many fires are started by thunderstorms as during this summer.

"In an average year, I report for work around the second week in June and stay until the end of deer hunting season in mid-October," Lompa said. "One dry fall, I was here until mid-November."

Last year, Lompa was the first to report the Booth Fire that later merged with the Bear Butte Fire to form the B&B Complex Fire burning 92,000 acres.

"I was watching the Bear Butte Fire with Dave Snow, a retired Forest Service employee from Sisters and the relief lookout on Henkle Butte," he said. "As that fire spread, I looked to the west and saw a dark smoke column suddenly appear near the Santiam Pass. It happened so fast and the smoke was so dark that I thought it was a car fire."

Large and small peaks, old fire scars, and other geographic locations help Lompa pinpoint locations of fires. Using his Osborne firefinder located over a map in the center of the room, Lompa determines the direction of the smoke from Henkle and radios his report to the Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center at Prineville, from which crews are dispatched.

He has radio contact with Department of Forestry personnel as well as with Black Butte Lookout operated by the U. S. Forest Service. Lompa is constantly looking over the country, even during conversations with visitors. Signs of smoke and anything that "just doesn't look right" are quickly viewed more closely with his binoculars.

"There now are only three lookouts in the Sisters area," Lompa said. "These are Henkle Butte and Black Butte. Green Ridge overlooking the Metolius Basin is staffed by volunteers."

The Department of Forestry's Central Oregon District operates only two other lookouts besides Henkle Butte and both are east of Prineville. During the 1960s and 1970s, most of Oregon's 805 lookouts closed with increased wildfire detection by woods workers, recreationists, the public and aircraft patrols, aided by increasing costs.

At one time, local lookouts were on Cache Mountain, Black Crater, Trout Creek Butte, Tam McArthur Rim, and in the City of Sisters.

"I came to Sisters in 1975 when I wrecked my car," Lompa said. He left his home in Santa Cruz, California, and while traveling through Oregon, became stranded in Sisters.

"I worked for Leithauser Grocery in Sisters for three months and then moved on to Papandreas's Pizzeria when it opened up. Everyone there needed an Italian name. That's when I became Tony'."

Lompa soon had the opportunity to work on a summer fire crew with the Department of Forestry.

In 1985 he became a forest officer, a job he held for 12 summers.

Winters were spent working with the Oregon Department of Transportation driving a snow plow on what he refers to as the "Bermuda Triangle" -- Sisters to Redmond to Bend and back to Sisters.

In 1997, he noticed that he was starting "to fall about one step behind younger firefighters" and changed jobs again to the Henkle Butte forest lookout. During the winters, he is a safety officer for Department of Forestry crews working for the U.S. Forest Service on roadside fuels reduction along the Santiam highway.

Over the years, Lompa has also become a popular entertainer in the Sisters area, playing guitar and singing in local nightspots and at private parties.

Henkle Butte is not a typical lookout station. Lompa has electricity that allows him to have a microwave oven and television set.

He uses his personal cell phone to call the Sisters office, if necessary.

He drives to his job each day from his nearby home off Holmes Road, arriving around 9:30 a.m. and staying until dark -- longer if a storm is in progress.

When asked what was the nearest lightning strike he can recall, Lompa points to a fresh scars on a small pine tree about 150 feet from the lookout.

A strike came down there during a storm this summer.

"It really lit up the room," he said.