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Fire lookout · Navajo County, Arizona

Buckskin Lookout

A 1963 International Derrick fire tower on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, listed as inactive by the register though the tower still stands.

Permission required

You need permission from the tribe or landowner before visiting. On the White Mountain Apache Reservation. No public visiting information found. Ask the White Mountain Apache Tribe before going; this level is my judgment from the reservation location, not a source statement.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Permission required. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
1967 survey directions from Heber: southwest on State Highway 160 about 14 miles to Rim Road, east on Rim Road 11.1 miles, then south 2.4 miles. The directions may be out of date.
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerInternational Derrick brand tower with a 7' x 7' metal cabThe design: IDECO
Built of
Steel
Built
1963
Height
Unknown
Elevation
7,361 ft (2,244 m)
Agency
White Mountain Apache Agency
Land
Unknown
Location
Navajo County, Arizona
Coordinates
34.26867, −110.60823
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-az-buckskin

View from the cab

What you see from the cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.

Downloads about 3.0 MB of terrain data the first time.

Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1963 BuiltConstructed in 1963 as an International Derrick brand fire towerSource: nhlr.org
  2. 1967 EventCoast and Geodetic Survey station description calls it a 100 ft steel tower with a 7 ft x 7 ft cabSource: westlookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1967 and 2002
  4. 2002 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered January 31, 2002Source: nhlr.org
  5. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

Old maps of this spot

USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Buckskin Lookout went up in 1963 on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.1 The National Historic Lookout Register calls it the reservation's sole International Derrick tower and one of its newest.1 The register describes an 82-foot metal tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab.1 A 1967 survey description, reproduced on Ron Kemnow's page, instead calls it a 100-foot steel tower with a cab of the same size.2 The two sources disagree on the height, and I could not settle it.

The register recorded the lookout on January 31, 2002, with Dave Lorenz, AZ/NM Registrar, as nominator.1 It now lists the tower as inactive, while the Fire Lookout Association still lists the structure as standing. Both listings can be true.1,3 The register page shows no visit reports, so I found no staffing record.1

The 1967 survey notes give directions from Heber: southwest on State Highway 160 about 14 miles to the Rim Road, east on the Rim Road 11.1 miles, then south 2.4 miles to the tower. Those directions are from 1967 and may be out of date.2

Today the tower sits on reservation land.1 I found no public visiting information, so treat it as closed to visitors unless the White Mountain Apache Tribe says otherwise. Do not climb it, and I found no rental.

  1. Buckskin Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/az/buckskin-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Buckskin, Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow), https://westlookouts.weebly.com/buckskin.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Arizona lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/az/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Buckskin Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, agency, access, visiting details, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story

More about this lookout elsewhere

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.