100 stories from the hiking route

2007 – reconstruction of the Sõõru Fire Lookout Tower

Information

Topic

The story of forestry

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 58.64300833

Longitude: 26.90891389

L-EST 97

x: 6504014.1
y: 668853.7

Location

Ähijärve-Aegviidu Hiking route

The fire lookout tower built in 1910 is the symbol of Sõõru Village. The proud iron structure tower is 37 metres tall. The tower was built over a hundred years ago to cover the fire lookout needs of the forest, as the local pine forests growing on the dry sandy terrain were highly flammable in the summer. The tower was renovated in 2007 after having fallen into disuse for a long time.
Wood structure towers were mainly used for fire lookout until the 1960s, which is why the Sõõru tower is so unique with its metal framework.
Many new fire lookout towers were built during the 1960s–1970s, the forest holdings received a lot of fire extinguishing equipment, and fire hydrants, firebreaks and forest roads were built. Thanks to all of that, forest fires were discovered and extinguished faster than before.
Fire lookout towers are no longer built in forest districts, as since 2007, RMK has used an electronic fire watch system to observe the forest in the Vihterpalu area on the border of Harju and Lääne counties because fires are especially frequent there.

NB! Climbing the tower is not allowed.

Fires have redesigned forests in every era and their effects can be observed decades later. Fires of natural origin can be started by lightning. For the most part, however, fires are caused by human negligence: carelessness when burning rubbish, making a fire, tossing matches or burnt cigarettes on the ground.