I first learned how fire towers work from the 1950s TV series, Fury, which starred a boy named Joey and his incredible black horse, Fury. In one episode, Joey saved the day by racing on Fury to an unmanned fire tower; and then, using a sighting instrument to determine the directional bearing to a fire. With a hand-cranked telephone, Joey called a ranger in another tower who determined the bearing from his location. The point at which the sighted bearings from those two towers crossed on a map determined the exact location of the fire, and crews were dispatched to extinguish it.

The sighting instrument Joey used is called an alidade, and the Cherokee Ridge Alpine Trail Association (CRATA) is in possession of the one that was used in the Smith Mountain fire lookout tower. That alidade will be one of the exhibits featured at the Smith Mountain Outdoor Environmental Education Center, along with descriptions and diagrams showing how it was used.