For the better part of an hour, he might be the only person. Mr. Haugen has worked for more than half of his 52 years as a fire lookout, scanning the larch and pine wilderness from a one-room mountaintop cabin. More and more, he stands at another divide, too: between human jobs and automation. The chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Randy Moore, told lawmakers in March that the agency was moving away from humans in watchtowers. “We need to lean much further into the technology arena,” he said.

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Persons: Leif Haugen, Haugen, mutt, Ollie, Randy Moore, ” Organizations: U.S . Forest Service Locations: Montana, West