Firefighters once relied heavily on men and women in towers to scan the backcountry for smoke.

Their reports could give crews a jump on fires before they got out of control.

Some fire lookout towers are still in use. And now Salt River Project, which has a number of transmission lines on national forest land, has launched a pilot program to mount cameras on those lines.

The solar-powered cameras have a range of about 10 miles and can capture images at night.