Great summer job, for some people :)

Burnham

Woods walker
Joined
Mar 7, 2005
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Location
Western Oregon
Seasonal position with the Forest Service. Kinda a dream job for a certain sort of person. Fire lookout, located on the east side of my Forest, the Mt. Hood NF.
 

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Some years back I did some work up there at Flag Point...removed two obsolete 6' diameter microwave dish antennas and R&R a batch of solar collectors with upgrades. I went back through my photo files and found this shot which shows the lookout tower and cab in the background.

The A-frame building in front houses a radio repeater installation and it's battery banks.

What the heck, here's pics of the solar panel job, too. In the first two pics if you look real close you can see me on the antenna tower. We had one microwave dish down, one to go.
 

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I applied for a lookout position once. Received a reply that there were none available, but they would keep me on a list if a position came up during the course of a contract. Never heard back. I heard there is lots of jabber at night on the radio between the watches at night, talk about imaginations seeing women in short skirts climbing up the hill towards the tower.
 
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See the pdf I attached, Butch. You can find out all those details from there.
 
Duties: Serves as a Lookout in the detection of wildland fires. Assists with fire dispatch through operation of radios, telephones, and other necessary equipment to exchange information for fire weather and other forest suppression activities. Reports smoke and fires giving location, estimated size, and other pertinent information. Reads simple weather instruments and reports wind direction, wind speed, temperature, humidity, and fire behavior information. Keeps dispatcher and fire officials informed of current conditions.

Pay: $27,990.00 /year GS-0462-04

Requirements - Who may be considered: U.S. Citizens
MINIMUM FEDERAL QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS:

Qualifying experience for the GS-4 level includes six months general experience that demonstrates the applicant's ability to perform the work of the position or that provided familiarity with the subject matter or processes of the occupation AND six months specialized experience at the GS-3 level that is directly related to the line of work of the position to be filled and which has equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position.

SUBSTITUTION OF EDUCATION FOR EXPERIENCE: Experience requirements may be met by successful completion of two (2) academic years of post high school education which included at least 12 semester/18 quarter hours in any combination of courses such as forestry, agriculture, crop or plant science, range management or conservation, wildlife management, watershed management, soil science, natural resources (except marine fisheries and oceanography), outdoor recreation management, civil or forest engineering, or wildland fire science. No more than 3 semester/4 quarter hours in mathematics is creditable.

COMBINATION OF EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: Equivalent combinations of successfully completed education and experience may be used to meet the experience requirements.
 
My wife and I were just talking about that the other day. Have you ever heard of Families taking the position? Of course the job would be performed by either myself or my wife, who ever is more interested. Seems like it would be a good education for the girls.
 
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Pete, that arrangement is not uncommon when lookout duties are let for contract. The Sisi Lookout on the west side of this Forest was handled that way for a good number of years, and a couple got the multi-year contract several rounds of requests for bid. But you have to understand, a fire lookout is a TINY space. It's a rare one that has room for more than one single bed :). No running water, seldom is there electricity, refrigeration is rare, cooking facilities spartan. It would be really tough with a couple of children.

This one is for a seasonal FS employee, 5 days on 2 days off. I am fairly sure an existing FS employee would cover the 2 off days. It would be a bit off the reservation to bring in your spose and kids in this situation...if one got half-way lucky with one's supervisor one could probably run under the radar and have a visiting spouse or friend stay over now and again, but full time might raise too many flags, and kids ups the ante by several orders of magnitude, liability-wise and thus risk to the super for looking the other way.
 
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I hear you. My wife and I have talked about volunteering to man a fire lookout when we retire in a few more turns of the calendar. May yet come to pass if the stars all align :).(.
 
Anybody ever read the beat writer, Jack Kerouac? Books, 'On the Road'...'Dharma Bums'.... One inspiration for him was being a fire lookout for the Forest Service on Desolation Peak, in Washington.
 
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