fire

One night there was a storm a fair distance from my tower. I could see the lightning, but I could not hear the thunder.

Most lightening is what we call “sheet lightening,” that is the lightning was flashing within the clouds. It makes a lot of light and sometimes big bangs but is harmless, at least as far as fires are concerned.

It is when the lightning comes down to the ground, and “strikes” the ground that a fire can be started. Sometimes these strikes are over in a fraction of an instant, and sometimes the bolt of lightening seems to grab the ground and shake it. It seems that those kinds of strikes last a long time, of course, they are still very short duration.

It was late at night, but I had seen the storm and was sitting up watching it’s progress.

Then FLASH. It was one of those hot strikes that hits and shakes, and when it was was over, there was a little red glow. A forest fire had been started. Fire policy has changed through the years, but at that point we put out all fires.

I phoned the dispatcher, gave them a reading and told him that the fire was about 1/2 mile from the lookout tower on that mountain.

The lookout guy was sleeping. I guess he was a sound sleeper, he slept through the whole storm. In fact, the fire crew arrived a couple of hours later, and woke him up! Not a good way to impress the boss.

I reported the fire as being 5/8 acre, which was a guess, since I was at least 30 miles away. We had a chart and some instructions, so it was not a total guess. Turned out my estimate was pretty close.

That was one of the highlights of the summer, which is another way to say that for the most part, sitting on a lookout tower can be VERY boring.