Fire Lookouts are very few and far between these days. Detection from the air is more common, cheaper, and more reliable. However, there are a few lookouts manned by volunteers, a task I hope to do someday when things are settled down.
When I was on lookout, in 1962, my 'sanitary facilities' consisted of a one-holer down slope a bit, made of logs, no door, with the best view on earth. My stove burned wood, which I had to cut from the world's worst firewood, subalpine fir. I had to carry my water on my back from a spring a mile away and 1000 feet down. Mountain goats and marmots were my only neighbors.
Nowadays, lookouts are provided with gas-stoves and water so they have nothing to do but look for smoke. How boring.
Here's a web-page where somebody describes my lookout, Diablo Mountain. firelookout.com I had the old building on the left, not the new-fangled one on the right. Because I was above timberline and sat on the edge of a precipitous cliff, I did not need a tower. Towers are needed where the surrounding trees are tall, or the terrain is such that a tower offers a significant advantage.
I got a lesson in Haiku from elpolvo, who we sometimes see in the Poetry Corner, but I had forgotten what he called "Five Seven Fiveness." Thanks for reminding me. |
