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Fire lookout · Coconino County, Arizona

Volunteer Lookout

Also known as Volunteer Mountain

1963 fire lookout on Volunteer Mountain, Navajo Army Depot, Coconino County, Arizona; closed to public access; NHLR-registered 2006.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. Operated cooperatively by the Army and the Kaibab National Forest on the Navajo Army Depot; register says closed to public access

Visit & stay

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

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower14 by 14 foot metal CL-100 cab on a 30-foot metal tower with catwalkThe design: CL-100
Built of
Steel
Built
1963
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
8,047 ft (2,453 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Coconino County, Arizona
Coordinates
35.21797, −111.89545
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-az-volunteer

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. 1921 StaffedLookout stationed on the mountain during the summer months; a trail was built up to the lookout tower on topSource: westlookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1921 and 1963
  3. 1963 BuiltBuilt 1963 per NHLR; the CL-100 cab on a 30-foot tower replaced an earlier wooden lookout dating to the 1930sSource: nhlr.org
  4. No record between 1963 and 1988
  5. 1988 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesVolunteer Lookout Cabin listed as NRHP 87002481, added 1988; record describes a building with significant year 1939Sources: westlookouts.weebly.com, npgallery.nps.gov
  6. No record between 1988 and 2006
  7. 2006 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 15, 2006 as US 665, AZ 60; nominated by Dave LorenzSource: nhlr.org
  8. 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.

Volunteer Lookout stands on Volunteer Mountain in Coconino County, Arizona, on the grounds of the Navajo Army Depot.1,2 The Army and the Kaibab National Forest operate it together, and the register says it is closed to public access.1

The mountain had a lookout by 1921.2 That year the Williams News reported work on a trail up Volunteer Mountain to the lookout tower on top.2 H.S. Perry won the bid to build the trail, and a November 1921 item said the trail would let the summer lookout reach fires more quickly.2

The register gives 1963 as the build year.1 In its account, a 14-foot-square CL-100 cab, mounted on a 30-foot metal tower and fitted with a catwalk, succeeded a wooden lookout from the 1930s.1 The 1921 reports already describe a lookout tower on the mountain, which does not fit a 1930s start date.1,2 The sources disagree on this, and the sources read do not settle it.1,2

The National Register lists a "Volunteer Lookout Cabin" under number 87002481, added in 1988.3 Its record describes a building with a significant year of 1939.3 The sources read do not say whether that listing covers the tower, the earlier wooden lookout, or another structure.2,3

The register accepted the lookout on March 15, 2006, as US 665, AZ 60, on a nomination from Dave Lorenz.1

Today the register describes the lookout as closed to public access, so it is not a site to visit or climb.1 The sources read do not give its current staffing, or say whether the cab is still used for fire watch.1

  1. Volunteer Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/az/volunteer-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Volunteer Mountain, Forest Lookouts (westlookouts.weebly.com), https://westlookouts.weebly.com/volunteer-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Volunteer Lookout Cabin, National Register of Historic Places record 87002481, NPGallery (npgallery.nps.gov), https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/87002481 (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Volunteer Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Volunteer Lookout
Photo: Kaibab National Forest, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · source
Photo of Volunteer Lookout
Photo: Kaibab National Forest, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, 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. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: height, photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · 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, height, status, agency, access, 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

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