FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · San Diego County, California

Los Pinos Lookout

Also known as Los Pinos Mountain

A 1964 Forest Service steel tower on Los Pinos Mountain in San Diego County, replacing a 1925 wooden tower; described as staffed. A directory marks it Gone; unresolved.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Described as an active Forest Service lookout. The FFLA chapter says the road to the lookout is paved; no source says visitors may climb the tower.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
FFLA San Diego-Riverside chapter says the road to the lookout is paved and the tower has electric service, running water, a telephone and a shower in a service building at ground level.
Staffing
Staffed during fire season

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerLive-in cab on a 30 ft steel tower. NHLR: 14 x 14 ft CL-100 cab; FFLA San Diego-Riverside chapter: 13 x 13 ft CL-30 series cabCab: CL-100; tower: L-1600 steel tower
Built of
Steel
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
4,805 ft (1,465 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
San Diego County, California
Coordinates
32.73448, −116.57768 sources disagree
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-los-pinos

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 2.8 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. 1925 BuiltOriginal wooden tower, in use from 1925 (NHLR and FFLA chapter)Sources: nhlr.org, ffla-sandiego.org
  2. No record between 1925 and 1964
  3. 1964 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
  4. 1964 Replaced by a new structureCurrent steel tower opened in 1964, replacing the 1925 wooden towerSources: nhlr.org, ffla-sandiego.org, peakbagging.com
  5. No record between 1964 and 2003
  6. 2003 StaffedPeakbagging.com says the lookout is staffed most of the year; the text is undated and the photo is from January 2003Source: peakbagging.com
  7. 2008 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered June 19, 2008 as NHLR US 742Source: 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.

Los Pinos Lookout stands on Los Pinos Mountain in the Cleveland National Forest, in southern San Diego County near the Mexican border and Lake Morena.1,2,3

The first lookout on the site was a wooden tower in use from 1925.1,2 The steel tower that stands today replaced it in 1964.1,2,3 The register describes a 14-by-14-foot CL-100 live-in cab on a 30-foot steel tower.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's San Diego-Riverside chapter gives a 13-by-13-foot CL-30 series cab on a 30-foot steel tower, so the two sources differ on the cab.2

The San Diego-Riverside chapter claims that no other Cleveland National Forest tower is still staffed by Forest Service employees.2 Peakbagging.com, with a January 2003 photo, says the lookout is staffed most of the year.3 The register listed the lookout on June 19, 2008.1

According to the chapter, the tower has electric power, hot and cold running water, a telephone and a shower in a service building at ground level. The road to the lookout is paved.2

A directory list on firelookout.org marks a Los Pinos Mountain entry as Gone, which does not fit the staffed-tower accounts.4 I could not resolve that difference. Until a Forest Service source says otherwise, treat the tower as standing and staffed. These sources do not say whether visitors may climb it, so check with the Cleveland National Forest before you go, and do not climb the tower if it is closed.

  1. Los Pinos Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ca/los-pinos-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Los Pinos, FFLA San Diego-Riverside Chapter (ffla-sandiego.org), https://www.ffla-sandiego.org/fire-lookout/southern-california-towers/los-pinos/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Los Pinos Mountain Lookout, California, Peakbagging.com, http://www.peakbagging.com/CALookoutPhotos/LosPinos.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. California lookout directory, Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org), https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ca/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Los Pinos Lookout
Photo: 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 the location by 540 m.

    • FFLA: 32.73448, −116.57768
    • NHLR: 32.73333, −116.58333
    • FFLA San Diego-Riverside Chapter: 32.73333, −116.58333

    They share a register number.

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

  • Sources disagree on the year it was built.

    • NHLR: 1964
    • FFLA San Diego-Riverside Chapter: 1925

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, 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: location, 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. FFLA San Diego-Riverside Chapter Gave us: design, height, staffing, dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, San Diego-Riverside Chapter (ffla-sandiego.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, designs, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the chapter's page it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  4. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, 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

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