Here's a couple of options:
1. The flame keepers do not normally live next to the wood piles. When weather conditions permit, the watch is set in more hospitable environs lower down the mountain, then when the adjacent beacon is lit someone makes haste up the mountain to light the next one. The montage with the awesome music and visuals compresses the actual time it takes for the signal to travel. (I would note in defense of this thesis that at least one shot of a beacon blazing off seems to take place at night, with the others being in bright daylight, implying the passage of hours, not seconds, between beacons.) Even if this is true, it would still require frequent visits at certain times of year just to keep the wood unburied from snow.
2. The keepers do house close to the beacon site (not necessarily right next to it), but they rotate fairly frequently, and each relief watch brings their own supplies.
Either way, it's probably a cush government job where the workers get steady wages in gold or mead for not doing much, and can never be fired as long as they show up.
Or perhaps it is a sort of criminal sentence - a temporary exile, where you can do your time, keep your nose clean, and get to rejoin the community when the next guy gets sentenced.
What I wonder about the whole thing is purely scientific: what is the highest altitude where wood will readily burn in the thin air? Is there a correlation between tree line (above which trees won't grow) and 'burn line' (above which a wood fire will not propagate)?
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