I worked as a Fire Lookout for three summers, I have some stories to tell.
Years ago, I was making my way out of high school and I was looking for work. I was hoping I could find something steady, and preferably busy enough to keep me out of the house as my at-home situation really wasn't all that great. I struck out a few times, and eventually landed on a summer job working as a fire lookout, though I won't share what park for safety reasons. All in all, it seemed great, except for the fact that it was really only a summer job. I always loved nature, going on hikes, that kind of thing - not to mention that it gave me someplace to stay the whole time.
Anyways, as a Fire Lookout, my job is relatively simple. I sit in my tower, and I watch. Of course, as you can imagine, I get up to a lot more than just that on a day-to-day basis. It isn't exactly often that people take the hiking routes this far out into the park, and it's even less likely that the people who do come this far actually pose any danger of setting the entire place ablaze. So I do a lot of hiking myself, and let me tell you, if there's one thing nobody tells you when signing up for this job, it's the strange shit you see out here. For a while, I thought that this kind of thing was just something nobody talked about, until I stumbled across u/searchandrescuewoods posts about their experiences as a Search and Rescue officer, and some of the things they've seen or heard. I don't think my stories are quite as crazy as some of the things that they've talked about, but here's a few of mine.
- On my first couple of days, I had a park ranger and another fire lookout with me who were kinda giving me the rundown of everything I needed to know. Safety procedures, radio etiquette, locations of the nearby ranger stations and trails and all of that stuff. While we were walking