Fire lookout · Ventura County, California
Cuyama Peak Lookout
A 1934 modified L-4 lookout in the Los Padres National Forest on a 20-foot steel tower; the cab has collapsed onto the platform, and sources differ on the date.
- Standing
- Open to the public
- Verified
Standing: The tower still stands, but its cab is gone (FFLA).
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Open to the public. A maintained dirt road reaches the top; a blog says it is not advised for passenger cars. The collapsed cab is not a place to climb.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Yes, you can drive up
- Trail
- A maintained dirt road reaches the top; the blog advises against passenger cars.
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerModified L-4 cab atop a 20-foot steel H-braced towerThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Also served as
- Aircraft Warning Service postDuring the Second World War it was staffed to spot and report aircraft.
- Built
- 1934
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- 5,783 ft (1,763 m)
- Agency
- U.S. Forest Service, Los Padres National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Ventura County, California
- Coordinates
- 34.75394, −119.47595
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ca-cuyama-peak
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 3.2 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
- 1934 BuiltModified L-4 cab on a 20-foot steel H-braced towerSources: nhlr.org, craigrcarey.net
- 1935 EventTelephone line to the peak completed in January 1935Source: californialookouts.weebly.com
- 1939 StaffedLookout ordered open for the season after lightning storms; the first lookout opened that seasonSource: californialookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1939 and 1998
- 1998 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterNHLR US 286, CA 20; registered October 10, 1998Source: nhlr.org
- 2012 EventCab failed structurally and collapsed, per the California Lookouts history page (December 2012); a 2011 blog post already calls the cab collapsedSources: californialookouts.weebly.com, craigrcarey.net
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Cuyama Peak lookout was built in 1934 on a peak in the Los Padres National Forest.1,2 The Register describes a modified L-4 cab on a 20-foot steel tower with an H-braced frame.1
A telephone line to the peak was finished in January 1935, linking the Cuyama ranger station to the summit.3 In May 1939 lightning storms led the forest supervisor to order the lookout opened, the first lookout of that season to open.3
During World War II the site was also used by the Aircraft Warning Service, which kept a cabin there.1 The Register says that cabin is one of just four left in California, and it has since collapsed.1,4
The sources disagree on when the lookout stopped being used. A blog post from 2011 says the lookout went out of service in the 1960s.2 A reader's comment on the same page says the reader was hired and lived there for part of the summer of 1970, when the lookout was manned.2 A California Lookouts history page dates the cab's structural failure and collapse to December 2012.3 Updated photographs in the Register show the cab down on the tower platform.1 ForestWatch says the lookout cabin and the Aircraft Warning Service residence below it have fallen into ruin in recent years.4
The Register records the lookout's registration on October 10, 1998.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's county list marks the tower as standing, with an asterisk.5 A maintained dirt road reaches the top, though a blog warns against taking ordinary passenger cars up it.4,2 With the cab down, the site is best seen from the road rather than climbed.
- Cuyama Peak Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ca/cuyama-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Lookout! No. 6: Cuyama Peak, Craig R. Carey (craigrcarey.net), https://www.craigrcarey.net/2011/08/lookout-cuyama-peak/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Cuyama Peak - Forest Lookouts, California Lookouts (californialookouts.weebly.com), https://californialookouts.weebly.com/cuyama-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- What's at Stake, Los Padres ForestWatch, https://forestwatch.org/news/whats-at-stake/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- California Lookouts by County, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ca/ca-co/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, wartime use, 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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) 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
- 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
- NHLR register entry US 286 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Lookout! No. 6: Cuyama Peak (Craig R. Carey (craigrcarey.net)) (opens another site)
- What's at Stake (Los Padres ForestWatch) (opens another site)
- California Lookouts by County (Forest Fire Lookout Association) (opens another site)
- FFLA California lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Cuyama Peak on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.