In the book, "Glass Giant of Palomar" about the design and construction of the 200" telescope, they dwell a bit on the fire issue. A loss of the ground cover vegetation seriously disturbs the local seeing. So they included local water storage and fire fighting equipment in the specifications.
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As well, the structures were concrete, the utilities were all underground and the ventilation systems were capable of being closed off to prevent smoke or burning matter from entering the buildings.
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Fire fighting is probably not a serious issue at either the Hawaiian or Chilean scope sites!
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Mike
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