Sunday, June 07, 2009

On the Lookout!!!

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Spent the day here in training for fire lookout detection at Delilah Lookout, elevation 5,156 ft. and about 80 stairs!  What a view!!!  I learned about 100 landmark features! (or so it seemed) and got to practice with the Osborne fire finder and learning more of the ropes of being a volunteer fire lookout!  It was great!

 

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Here I practice taking the wind and temperature reading with a cool instrument called a Kestrel.  It was briskly blowing that day.  As you can see bye the cloudy sky there was a storm approaching.

 

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Here you see the Osborne fire finder where the azimuth in degrees and minutes can be determined (sometimes, if you can see the base of the fire!)  A lookout must be just that always on the lookout and continually watching.

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Another important aspect of the duties of a fire lookout are to keep other lookouts informed of what has happened when you were on watch.  A detailed record log of traffic and fires and other observations is made in addition to a daily journal of events.  In this way hopefully there will be no repeat reporting of a fire that has already been seen.  As you can see, some spend the night here…I think that would be awesome to see the evening fade and the night stars from the lookout and the coming of the dawn the next day.  Sign me up! LOL

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