how do timers work?

[ApeCake]

Yeah as far as I understand your question I think AddEntityCollideCallback is better. That way the player will probably notice the torches going on unlike timers (the player could be looking at a wall and the function would activate after a time and (s)he maybe wouldn't notice the torches going lit).
This should be the script:

void OnStart()
{
AddEntityCollideCallback("Player", "ScriptArea_1", "NameofFunction", false, 1);

// you can set false to true if you want it to delete after the first time.
}


void NameofFunction(string &in asParent, string &in asChild, int alState)
{
SetLampLit("NameofTorch", true, true);
}

I'm pretty sure that should work.