fire-watcher
noun
A person keeping watch for fires, especially forest fires or those caused by bombs.Failing to notice the brutal dictatorship under which the daughters of educated men lived, she became a fire-watcher by night during the Blitz and a mechanic constructing tank engines by day....
- A fire-watcher during the Second World War bombing of Hull, he is said to have been bombed out nine times.
- An additional fire watcher may be required to observe areas that are hidden from the view of a single fire watcher.
Derivatives
fire-watching
- In the UK about 500 of the 6,500 conscientious objectors imprisoned between 1940 and 1945 were women who had refused conscription or compulsory fire-watching duties.
- In 1939 the library was used as a fire-watching station.
- Although some street fire watching parties were formed spontaneously, understandably many people did not want to simply sit and wait for incendiaries, particularly night after night.