FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Trinity County, California

Kettenpom Peak Lookout

Six Rivers NF lookout in Trinity County, built 1936 and destroyed in the 2020 August Complex fires; sources disagree on the tower's height and frame.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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 sources disagree
Type
Cab on a towerCalifornia Region 5 Plan BC-301 cabin on a timber tower (Register); sources disagree on the tower's height and frameThe design: BC-301
Built of
Wood
Built
1936
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
3,877 ft (1,182 m)
Agency
US Forest Service - Six Rivers National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Trinity County, California
Coordinates
40.14563, −123.46968
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-kettenpom-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 its recorded height.

Downloads about 4.0 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. 1935 EventForest Service hauling material to build the new lookout, December 1935Source: californialookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1936 BuiltRegister Built field reads 1936Sources: nhlr.org, peakbagging.com
  3. No record between 1936 and 2019
  4. 2019 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered October 29, 2019 as US 1367, CA 190Source: nhlr.org
  5. 2020 BurnedDestroyed during the August Complex firesSources: firelookout.org, peakbagging.com
  6. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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.

The Kettenpom Peak lookout stood in Trinity County, within the Six Rivers National Forest.1 In December 1935 the Forest Service was hauling material to build it, and the Blue Lake Advocate reported a 14 x 14 frame building raised on steel, 20 feet above the ground.2 The register dates the lookout to 1936 and describes a cabin built to California Region 5 Plan BC-301, set on an open, 17-foot timber tower.1

The sources do not agree on the tower itself. A 1942 Coast and Geodetic Survey station description portrays it as a white timber structure on eight wooden legs, 30 feet tall.2 The register's 17-foot figure and the 1935 steel frame point elsewhere, so the height is unsettled.1,2

The register listed the lookout on October 29, 2019, before the fire.1 The lookout was destroyed in the August Complex fires of 2020.3,4 A Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter report says the Six Rivers tower was destroyed during those fires.3 A peakbagging page adds that the complex burned over one million acres from August to November 2020.4

A peakbagging page says the lookout is reached by road and trail.4 No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site now, or whether visitors can reach it. Check with the Six Rivers National Forest before planning a trip.

  1. Kettenpom Peak Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ca/kettenpom-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Kettenpom Peak (Trinity County), Forest Lookouts (californialookouts.weebly.com), https://californialookouts.weebly.com/kettenpom-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. California-Northern Chapter report, 2020, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/cr-ca-north-2020.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Kettenpom Peak Lookout, Trinity County, California, Peakbagging.com, http://peakbagging.com/CALookoutPhotos/Kettenpom.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Kettenpom Peak Lookout - 2009
Kettenpom Peak Lookout - 2009 (2009)Photo: Ron Kemnow, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Kettenpom Peak Lookout
Photo: www.peakbagging.com, via 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.

Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on whether it still stands.

    • FFLA: Gone
    • NHLR: Standing

    NHLR lists lookouts that were standing when registered.

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. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height, 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, 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.