FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Plumas County, California

Camel Peak Lookout Site

Plumas County lookout built 1926 and staffed into the 1930s and 1946; listed as gone with removal date unknown, and no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as gone; the register gives no removal date and no source describes the site today

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Two-story buildingCalifornia Region 5 Plan 4AR on an enclosed timber towerThe design: D-5 (4-AR)
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1926
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,718 ft (1,743 m)
Agency
US Forest Service - Plumas National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Plumas County, California
Coordinates
39.72009, −121.10159
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-camel-peak

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its 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.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.4 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. 1926 BuiltBuilt 1926 per the register's Built field and descriptionSource: firetower.org
  2. 1929 StaffedTom Gray employed as the fire-season lookout (Plumas Independent, June 1929)Source: californialookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1936 StaffedGray to resume duties at the lookout station near Cascade for summer 1936 (Plumas Independent, May 1936)Source: californialookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1938 StaffedGray occupied the station through summer 1938 (Feather River Bulletin, March 1939)Source: californialookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1946 FireFire less than two miles south of the station, found by an army pilot and held to about eight acres by a logging crew (Portola Reporter, July 1946)Source: californialookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1946 and 2020
  7. 2020 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: February 2, 2020Source: FFLOS register entry
  8. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Camel Peak, in Plumas County on the Plumas National Forest, got a Forest Service fire lookout in 1926.1 The register describes it as a California Region 5 Plan 4AR design built on an enclosed timber tower.1

Newspaper items from 1929 to 1936 place Tom Gray at the station during the fire season.2 Gray had entered the service in 1918.2 When he resigned in March 1939, the Feather River Bulletin said his final post was Camel Peak, a station above the Middle Fork of the Feather River, and that he had held it through the summer of 1938.2

The newspaper items do not agree on where the station stood. A 1929 item puts it 12 miles west of La Porte, and a 1932 item says it was near Cascade.2

In July 1946 the lookout was Joe Miguel.2 An army pilot flying over the area spotted a fire less than two miles south of the station, circled to get the lookout's attention, and dropped a message on a streamer.2 A logging crew's bulldozers held the fire to about eight acres.2

The register gives 1926 as the build year but lists its removal as unknown.1 A photograph credited on that page, dated 1963, shows the lookout in place.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association now lists it as gone.3

No source we read describes what, if anything, is left on the summit today, or whether visitors can reach it.1,3

  1. Camel Peak Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ca/camel-peak-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Camel Peak - FOREST LOOKOUTS (newspaper excerpts), Forest Lookouts California pages, https://californialookouts.weebly.com/camel-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. California Lookouts by county, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ca/ca-co/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Camel Peak Lookout - 1963
Camel Peak Lookout - 1963 (1963)Photo: Ruby Ford, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.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. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, 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.