Lookout Show `n Tell #8:
Panoramic Photos
After inventing the Osborne Fire Finder, Wm. B.
Osborne went on to be the father of the adze-eye firefighting hoe, the
hygro-thermograph fire weather recording instrument, and perhaps the most valued
of all, the "Photo-Recording Transit" camera.
Part camera, part surveyor's transit, this
unique 75-pound precision-designed device was packed to the top of nearly every
lookout in the Northwest in the 1930s. Only six were
made, on special order from Leupold-Volpel Co. Six 1-man task crews
were given the highest priority in the USFS and other fire protection agencies,
because the photos had to be taken under the most ideal weather and light
conditions, at 9:00am, 12:00 noon, and
3:00pm..
The special camera took a set of three photos
on an infra-red 5"x13" film negative; each one covering 1/3rd of the
full 360-degree points of the compass, exactly as seen from the
lookout. The resulting same-size contact prints produced an
incredibly clear image of the distant peaks and valleys.
Mounted end-to-end, the 39" wide set of
three prints, the "Panoramic Photo", was etched precisely in azimuth
degrees from 0 to 360, and in degrees below & above
the elevation of the lookout site.
When a lookout reported a fire, simply relaying
the azimuth and vertical angle readings off the Osborne Fire Finder,
the dispatcher and the smokechaser could actually see the single snag that was
burning, 4 miles from the reporting lookout... even in the dark of
night!
Ray Kresek
Fire Lookout Museum
Spokane, WA
