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Fire lookout · Santa Barbara County, California

West Big Pine Lookout Site

Santa Barbara County cabin lookout on West Big Pine Mountain, built 1934 on a 10-foot timber tower; removal date unknown; a 2018 hiker found footings and scattered metal.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removal date unknown; a 2018 blog post describes only a couple of footings and scattered metal

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 towerCalifornia Region 5 Plan BC-301 cabin on a 10-foot open timber towerThe design: BC-301
Built of
Wood
Also served as
Aircraft Warning Service postDuring the Second World War it was staffed to spot and report aircraft.
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,435 ft (1,961 m)
Agency
Los Padres National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Santa Barbara County, California
Coordinates
34.69606, −119.67657
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-west-big-pine

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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

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. 1934 BuiltConstructed in 1934 as a Region 5 Plan BC-301 cabin on a 10-foot open timber towerSource: firetower.org
  2. No record between 1934 and 2020
  3. 2020 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate Registered April 16, 2020 (FFLOS)Source: firetower.org
  4. 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.

West Big Pine Mountain is in Santa Barbara County, inside the Los Padres National Forest.1 The register dates the lookout to 1934, when a California Region 5 plan BC-301 cabin went up on an open timber tower 10 feet tall.2 In World War II a residence cabin for the Aircraft Warning System was added, so the tower could be manned round the clock.2

The register lists the lookout as a former site and says the removal date is unknown.2

A hiker who wrote about a walk up the peak in April 2018 found only a couple of footings and some scattered metal from the lookout.3 He thought the higher peak to the east was the one properly called West Big Pine Mountain, and called the lookout's own peak West Big Pine Lookout.3 Partway up, he noted an old road cut just above him, and thought a road may once have led up to the lookout's peak.3 The sources I read give no current access rules for the lookout site.2,3,1

  1. West Big Pine, Forest Lookouts, https://californialookouts.weebly.com/west-big-pine.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. West Big Pine Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ca/west-big-pine-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. San Rafael: West Big Pine Mountain, Valhikes (blog), https://valhikes.blogspot.com/2018/04/san-rafael-west-big-pine-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

West Big Pine Mountain Lookout with AWS Cabin
West Big Pine Mountain Lookout with AWS CabinPhoto: USFS - Craig R. Carey Collection, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of West Big Pine Lookout Site
Photo: USFS - Craig R. Carey 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, wartime use, 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) 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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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.