Who watches the fire-watchers?
Other fire watchers.
The system is really cool, for an old school approach.
The towers each have a large compass ring and map inside them.
The operator sights the smoke, notes the heading from their location (which is accurately known), then relays that info to other towers.
The other towers attempt to do the same, and as such, triangulate the specific lat,long of the smoke.
Then crews can be dispatched to the location, where as prior to that they’d have to scout around and find it themselves, which can be tough at ground level
Edit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_Fire_Finder#/media/File%3ALookoutCharley01.JPG
This information is both cool and much appreciated, thanks :)
They really should have had this comic posted somewhere in the game Firewatch as an Easter egg!
A heroic sacrifice to draw the lightning away from the trees
