Tower Log - September 10, 2005

	September 10, 2005 1623 hrs At the Los Angeles County Fair has a lookout tower that was relocated from Josephine Peak. The fair is open from September 9th to October 2nd 2005. Susan and I signed up for duty at the tower for today. Although I have seen the tower at the fair before, I have never been by when it was open, so this should be interesting.
	1633 hrs New this year is a trail that leads to the tower, and on this fence are various public information displays. I often give talks about the Urban Wildfire Interface and part of that program talks about Defensible Space that homeowners need around their homes to protect them from wildfire.
	1634 hrs This is a great scene where a camper's campfire escaped. The ring is too small, and there was no fire break around the ring. This is very typical of the real thing when fires escape.
	1635 hrs Along the trail you can see how fare the fire had spread. How was this realistic scene made? With fire. While the Forest Service set up the display, Patrol 25 set the fire to the ground. It was easy to control as he had the full services of his fire engine on site. It made a very impressing (and effective!) display. Good job.
	1642 hrs Kurt and his wife Marie are Fire Lookouts from our sister group in San Bernardino National Forest Fire Lookouts, where they are the leaders for Black Mountain Lookout. They had staffed the tower all day and we were the night relief because the Fair is open until 10 PM. After the traditional hand-off briefing, they headed for the food court. hehehe Later on, their son came by the lookout and he waited there until his folks picked him up. We have a cross-training program with SBNF that I should look into. Black Mountain LO is one of my favorites.
	From the tower looking down, Patrol 25 left his truck parked by the tower. It was nice that it was there because I told people about the campfire display and about his truck. When showing off the Osborne inside the lookout, I had people zero in on the campfire display and made up a fictional story about the fire as if we were really in the mountains.
	From down below Susan took a shot of me in the Tower. The original stairs to the left are no longer used as a larger set of stairs were installed to accommodate the large numbers of people going up and down. Although you don't see it, we had about 300+ people visit the tower. It was really busy at times... then totally dead calm.
	1920 hrs As the Sun sets, the lookout feels like it is in the mountains... well except for the noise. Here Susan is keeping lookout from the walkway. There are many trees that tower above the lookout, and they hide the lookout from public view, so that reduces the number of visitors. However, the bad news is that the L.A. County Fair is talking about bulldozing the site to make way for another convention building. If this happens, I hope the Fair management find a way to relocate the tower. Maybe to the top of the hill on the Southern side of the fair grounds where it would be very appropriate.
	This is one of the signs located in the main area of the "quad" where all the forest displays are set up. There is a booth, and a stage where a puppeteer held a show regarding Forest animals.
	2050 hrs It's getting late and the number of visitors are dwindling. Susan is able to take a break and she brings back some snacks from the food court. Yum yum yum nothing like overpriced (but good) fair food.
	Inside the lookout. Here is the Osborne stand and attached is an old phone (that is broken). The Osborne had horse hair as is traditional for the spotting scope, but after the third time of fixing it due to the many hands... I fixed using a thin copper wire. That should last throughout the fair.
	Here is the bed and when visitors came in we told them, "Welcome to our home, this is where we live." Then we told them how lookouts lived in the woods and on mountain tops even to this day. This cabin is smaller than Vetter Mountain. I think it is a 10x10 where Vetter is 14x14.
	The tower is in good shape and the chair has the insulators on it. Next year (if its still there) I will gear up some more public information material for handouts.
	Outside are many displays. Here is Smokey's Five Rules 1. Smokey's friends don't play with matches 2. If you find matches at school give them to a teacher. 3. If you find matches at home, give them to your parents. 4. If you see younger kids playing with matches tell an adult. 5. If you see a fire burning out of control, tell and adult.
	0930 hrs Wow what a great night... Susan and I really had a good time, although my feet and legs were sore because as soon as I would sit down, people would come up the stairs, but that is why we were there. We had hundreds of people come through the small tower.
	0935 hrs As we closed up the tower and said goodbye, I did not expect that working the Fair would be this much fun. Our schedule for this year is full, but next year I plan on scheduling more time for this Tower. It really felt like working at Vetter, except for the animals and the lack of view, but the visitors at the fair were very much like the visitors on the mountain, from all walks of life, and from all over the world. The lookout was staffed by volunteers from: * Angeles National Forest Volunteers * San Bernardino National Forest Volunteers - Lookout Program * Angeles National Forest Fire Lookout Association I hope this tower is saved!!!

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