I think describing the location might be helpful.IF you head out Panoche road (near Hollister) California towards interstate 5. First it was several miles from the nearest paved road up cattle ranch roads that are all private and some are locked. So, if the weather was at all iffy I drove my 1974 International Harvester Scout II which was a 6 cylinder lock rear end 4 wheel drive which could literally be driven anywhere on earth. But, it cost more to drive it from the coast than my 1976 Rabbit which got really good mileage. So, if the weather was good enough I drove the Rabbit which was what I was driving when the Boar hit my Rabbit and pushed it off the dirt road and into the ditch back then in 1985 or 1986.
At the base of the lookout is a garage where you can open the doors and park your car out of the weather. Then you can lock the garage door from the inside and then climb the stairs up about to 30 feet in altitude above the ground inside the building the last 8 or 10 steps you go outside at about 20 feet in altitude and are walking on steps outside up to the entrance into the Lookout. There is also a veranda that is somewhat protected (all around the lookout at the top level) so you don't fall off so it has a railing. But, younger children you would have to watch out for if they were up there. Then you unlock the door and go in and you find there a kitchen sink, a gas stove burner, a little TV, a radio station for staying in contact with CDF Fire stations and Air Attack for fires etc. There is a water tank down on ground level and an electric pump to bring up water for washing but you need to bring your own drinking water. There is a refrigerator and in the center of the room there is a plotter so you can give radio directions of where exactly a fire and smoke you see are. Then I believe it was every two hours from about 7 am to 7 pm you give a weather report using instruments down on the ground that you check which tell you how dry or wet it is that day and how likely the brush around you could burn that day. So, you give a specific weather report for your station giving temperature, humidity and things like how dry the air is and how likely things could burn in your area. Then you have an insulated thing to stand on when lightning strikes there (because you are on top of a mountain and so lightning is going to strike there sometimes). In fact, one of the lookouts at Chalone peak got knocked unconscious while i was on duty and had to be taken to the hospital just while standing in her lookout but not on the insulation pad which is about 3 feet by three feet with special insulation so you don't die. I think she might have recovered being struck by lightning but I'm not sure. When I saw lightning strikes in the distance I always stood or sat cross legged on my insulation pad so I didn't die when it struck my lookout. But, I had to stay up in the lookout so I could communicate by radio with the fire stations and engines and Air attack during the lightning strikes always. Because lightning strikes almost always create fires that need to be put out by someone. So, the trick is staying alive while reporting lightning strikes as a fire lookout.
You report the distance from you of the strike and the direction on a plotting device and they have duplicates of this device in Fire Stations for plotting exact locations to send helicopters and firefighters. The only drawback of the lookout is you had to walk down 40 feet vertically to use the toilet there so most people were innovative in solving this problem. Because if it was between 7 am and 7 pm you were always expected to be near the radio to reply or give or receive any information necessary.
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