Engineers and investigators are evaluating damage from flames that ravaged a fire lookout and a key radio equipment outpost on Tallowbox Mountain southwest of Ruch Sunday evening.

The fire was reported at around 7:40 p.m. Sunday and Applegate Fire District No. 9 rushed to the hilltop location with two engines and six firefighters, district officials reported. Crews quickly extinguished the fire, which burned part of a radio building at the base of the Oregon Department of Forestry's Tallowbox lookout tower.

The radio building houses equipment used by Applegate Fire District No. 9, the Jackson County Sheriff's Department and the Bureau of Land Management and the Oregon Department of Forestry. Gear that provides some rural cell phone and broadband Internet service also is located there, officials said.

"We got a call about 8 p.m. that people could see a glow that looked like the lookout was on fire," said Greg Alexander, forester with the Medford unit of the Oregon Department of Forestry.

Although the fire didn't burn the lookout, it did char support beams and burn through some cross pieces, Alexander said. The lookout, which was shuttered to withstand winter storms, also had smashed windows and railings on its steep steps were torn down, he said.

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Crews did an initial damage assessment Monday, but an engineer will have to evaluate how and whether repairs can be done to ready the lookout for safe use next summer. It is one of only four ODF lookouts in Jackson County that is staffed during the summer fire season by observers trained to spot lightning strikes and other fires.

"Every lookout is important when we have lightning storms come through," Alexander said.

Tallowbox is the second Southern Oregon lookout and radio outpost to be damaged this year. In April vandals destroyed the historic Mount Sexton fire lookout in Josephine County and three radio repeater antennas there.

The radio equipment on Tallowbox serves emergency-response crews, but has backup systems elsewhere so service wasn't delayed or interrupted, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said. Technicians worked to restore service, but a full evaluation of the damage and the cost of repair wasn't available Monday.

Detectives and fire investigators worked to determine the cause of the fire Monday. The investigation is ongoing. A damage estimate hasn't been released.