Fire lookout · Decatur County, Georgia
Decatur County Fire Tower
Also known as west bainbridge
1953 Aermotor steel fire tower near Bainbridge, Decatur County, Georgia, built by the Georgia Forestry Commission; staffed until the 1990s and now used for communications.
- Standing
- Access unknown
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower100-foot Aermotor steel tower with a 7 by 7 foot metal cabThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1953
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 100 ft (31 m)
- Agency
- Georgia Forestry Commission
- Land
- State land
- Location
- Decatur County, Georgia
- Coordinates
- 30.91748, −84.59603
- Registers
- NHLR US 716 · GA 11
- BLL US 41113
- GFC US 219
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ga-decatur-county
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 2.6 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
- 1953 BuiltErected by the Georgia Forestry Commission; Forest Lookouts gives the same yearSources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1953 and 2008
- 2008 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered January 2, 2008 as US 716, GA 11; nominated by Brenda JonesSource: nhlr.org
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Decatur County Fire Tower is also listed under the name West Bainbridge, in Decatur County, Georgia.1,2 The Georgia Forestry Commission erected it in 1953.1,3 The National Historic Lookout Register also places it near the end of the Aermotor tower era.1
The Register describes the tower as 100 feet tall with a 7-by-7-foot metal cab, and says it was located at a ranger station.1 Forest Lookouts, a separate index, gives the same 1953 date and a 100-foot Aermotor steel tower.3 A photo file on Wikimedia Commons, with a GPS date of July 15, 2017, is captioned as a Georgia Forestry Commission tower on Dothan Road in Bainbridge, which suggests this tower still stood that year.4
According to the Register, the tower was staffed until the 1990s.1 The sources we read do not name the observers or list the fires it watched, and they do not say when it stopped working as a lookout.1
The Register says the tower currently serves communications.1 It does not say whether the tower has been moved or altered, and the other sources we read give nothing on its condition today.
We found no source that says whether the public can visit. Because the tower is used for communications, treat the site as a working facility. Check with the Georgia Forestry Commission before going, and do not climb the tower.
- Decatur County Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ga/decatur-county-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Georgia fire tower list, tnlandforms.us, https://tnlandforms.us/gatowers.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Decatur County, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/decatur-county.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Forestry Commission Tower, Decatur County, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Forestry_Commission_Tower,_Decatur_County.jpg (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, status, register numbers, agency, 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
- tnlandforms.us fire lookout towers (Tom Dunigan) -- GA, NC, TN (opens another site) Gave us: type, register numbers, links tnlandforms.us (Tom Dunigan) · No licence stated; facts only (coordinates, county, elevation, NGS/GFC/BLL register cross-references, status where given). · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: what it is built of, design, height, ownership, links easternuslookouts.weebly.com · No licence stated; facts only (county, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, status, height, design hints, register links). The site's own historical quotes, newspaper citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- 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
- NHLR register entry US 716 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Forestry Commission Tower, Decatur County (Wikimedia Commons) (opens another site)
- west bainbridge (tnlandforms.us (Tom Dunigan)) (opens another site)
- Decatur County (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.