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Fire lookout · Lake County, California

Sheetiron Mountain Lookout Site

Mendocino NF lookout in Lake County, built about 1915; the register says only the foundation of the original cabin remains; no source found on public access.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The register says only the foundation of the original cabin remains 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
Cab on a tower7x7 observation cabin on a 70-foot X-brace open steel tower; residence cabin also built; BC-201 cabin added 1935The design: BC-201
Built of
Steel
Built
1915
Height
70 ft (21.3 m)
Elevation
6,502 ft (1,982 m)
Agency
US Forest Service, Mendocino National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lake County, California
Coordinates
39.49126, −122.73408
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-sheetiron-mountain

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 3.3 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. 1915 BuiltRegister 'Built' field: circa 1915Source: firetower.org
  2. No record between 1915 and 1935
  3. 1935 AlteredBC-201 Fireman-Lookout cabin addedSource: firetower.org
  4. 1941 AlteredSpring water piped about 500 feet to the lookout, lifted by a salvaged gas engine into a 500-gallon tank (California Ranger, August 1941, as quoted by Forest Lookouts)Source: californialookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1941 and 2020
  6. 2020 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: February 1, 2020Source: FFLOS register entry
  7. 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.

Sheetiron Mountain rises to about 6,500 feet in the Mendocino National Forest, in Lake County.1,2 The register dates the lookout to about 1915, and its 1915 photograph comes from the Upper Lake Ranger District collection.1

The register describes a 7-by-7-foot observation cabin on a 70-foot open steel tower.1 A residence cabin was also built, and a BC-201 Fireman-Lookout cabin was added in 1935.1

A California Ranger item from August 1941, quoted on the Forest Lookouts site, describes the lookout's water supply. Spring water ran through a 500-foot pipe toward the lookout's kitchen, and a salvaged gas engine helped push it uphill into a 500-gallon storage tank. The item opens with Ranger John Monday.2

The register says only the foundation of the original cabin remains today.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's California list shows the tower as gone.3 None of the sources we read say whether the site is open to visitors or how to reach it.

  1. Sheetiron Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ca/sheetiron-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Sheetiron Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), https://californialookouts.weebly.com/sheetiron-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. California Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ca/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Sheetiron Mountain Lookout - 1915
Sheetiron Mountain Lookout - 1915 (1915)Photo: Upper Lake Ranger District Collection, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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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, height, 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.