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Fire lookout · Santa Barbara County, California

La Cumbre Peak Lookout

Los Padres lookout on La Cumbre Peak: 1923 glass house, current experimental cab dated 1945 or 1946, NHLR-registered 2010, now closed to the public and beside a day-use area.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. Forest Service says the old fire lookout tower is closed to the public; the site is day use only, reached past a locked gate

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?
No
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
About a quarter-mile hike past a locked gate to the picnic area on top; the tower itself is closed to the public
Staffing
Unknown (as of 2026)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerExperimental cab with sloped glass and relatively high walls; the only one of its type built, per the RegisterThe design: D-5 (4-AR)
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1923
Height
Unknown
Elevation
3,975 ft (1,212 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Santa Barbara County, California
Coordinates
34.49456, −119.71261
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-la-cumbre-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 3.0 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. 1923 BuiltSeasonal glass house on the summit completed in summer 1923 by the Forest ServiceSource: en.wikipedia.org
  2. 1923 FireSeptember 1923 fire approached the station from three sides; a newspaper reported rangers fighting to save it. Wikipedia says the station may have been affectedSources: californialookouts.weebly.com, en.wikipedia.org
  3. 1932 StaffedLaine Davis named lookout on La Cumbre peak for the Forest ServiceSource: californialookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1938 StaffedMay 1938 newspaper notice said the lookout station would open the following FridaySource: californialookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1945 BuiltCurrent experimental cab built in 1945 per News-Press and Peakbagging; the Register description and Wikipedia give 1946Sources: newspress.com, peakbagging.com, nhlr.org
  6. No record between 1945 and 2010
  7. 2010 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered June 19, 2010 as US 882, CA 92Source: 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.

A seasonal glass house on the summit of La Cumbre Peak was completed in the summer of 1923 by the Forest Service.1 That September a fire came at the station from three sides, and a newspaper reported rangers fighting to save it.2 By 1932 the Forest Service had named a lookout for the peak, and a May 1938 notice said the station would open the following Friday.2

The tower that stands today is dated to 1945 by the News-Press and Peakbagging.3,4 The National Historic Lookout Register's description and Wikipedia give 1946 instead.5,1 The Register says the new structure replaced an older cabin on a 10-foot open timber tower.5 Peakbagging describes the new cab as a one-off experimental design on a 20-foot K-brace tower.4 The two height figures may not describe the same structure.5,4 The Register calls the design experimental, with sloped glass and fairly high walls.5 Its $6,500 price was high for the time, so it was the only model built.5

The Register listed the lookout on June 19, 2010, as US 882, CA 92.5 Peakbagging notes that communications equipment is on the site.4 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list for Southern California gives the tower a status of "RF Hazard," without saying more.6

Today the Forest Service describes the tower as closed to the public. It sits beside a day-use area, and the picnic area is a quarter-mile hike past a locked gate.7 The sources do not say when the tower stopped being staffed, what it watched in later decades, or what work has been done on it since the Register listing. Please do not climb the closed tower. Check with the Los Padres National Forest before planning a visit.7

  1. La Cumbre Peak, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cumbre_Peak (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. La Cumbre Peak, Forest Lookouts (californialookouts.weebly.com), https://californialookouts.weebly.com/la-cumbre-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Ray Ford, "Ray Ford: East Camino Cielo's stairway to heaven," News-Press, https://www.newspress.com/2026/04/26/ray-ford-camino-cielos-stairway-to-heaven/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. La Cumbre Peak Lookout, California, Peakbagging (peakbagging.com), http://www.peakbagging.com/CALookoutPhotos/LaCumbre.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. La Cumbre Peak Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ca/la-cumbre-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  6. Southern California Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association California-South Chapter (firelookouthost.org), https://www.firelookouthost.org/southern-california (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  7. La Cumbre Peak Day Use, Los Padres National Forest, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r05/lospadres/recreation/la-cumbre-peak-day-use (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of La Cumbre Peak Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of La Cumbre Peak Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of La Cumbre Peak Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of La Cumbre Peak Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Original cabin - California Region 4A - Circa 1920's
Original cabin - California Region 4A - Circa 1920's (1920)Photo: USFS - Craig R. Carey Collection, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
1931
1931 (1931)Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of La Cumbre Peak Lookout
Photo: USFS - Craig R. Carey Collection, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Guest Register
Guest RegisterPhoto: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
New lookout under construction with old building visible
New lookout under construction with old building visiblePhoto: USFS - Craig R. Carey Collection, 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.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, 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 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
  4. FFLA chapters, affiliates and Friends groups: lookout pages Gave us: register numbers, links FFLA chapters and Friends groups (each link names the group) · Links to the groups' own pages; facts only from the California-South chapter's tower table (register page, operator, condition). No text or photos reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, staffing, 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.