FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Bar Point Lookout

Clearwater National Forest L-4 tower built in 1934 and destroyed in the 1960s; one page says removed and a 1972 staff entry sits oddly with that date.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in the 1960s per three pages; Forest Lookouts says removed

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
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site Hike-In.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.73176, −115.43987
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-bar-point

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 4.4 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 BuiltL-4 towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
  2. No record between 1934 and 1960
  3. 1960 DestroyedSources give only the 1960s; 1960 is a placeholder yearSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
  4. 1972 StaffedKnown-staff entry on Idaho Fire Lookouts, cited to the Kellogg Evening News; sits oddly with the 1960s destructionSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  5. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Bar Point Lookout was an L-4 tower in the Clearwater National Forest.1,2 Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts both date the tower to 1934, and the Clearwater list gives the same year.1,2,3 Forest Lookouts gives the same 1934 L-4 cab and credits the entry to Kresek.4 Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the site's elevation as 6,418 feet.2

The Idaho page's known-staff entry for 1972 names Mr. & Mrs. Brush Bash and cites the Kellogg Evening News.2 That date sits oddly beside the 1960s destruction the same page gives.2

Three sources date its destruction to the 1960s.1,2,3 Forest Lookouts marks it removed instead.4 The Idaho lookout list marks it gone.5

Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site Hike-In.2 None of the pages we read describes what, if anything, is left at the site today.1,2,4

  1. Bar Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/barpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Bar Point Lookout – Idaho Fire Lookouts, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/bar-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts (list compiled June 2016), USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Bar Point - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/bar-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho lookout list, firelookout.org, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  3. Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) Gave us: dates, links idahofirelookouts.com · No licence stated; facts only (coordinates, status/built/destroyed year parsed from each entry's short excerpt). Thumbnail photos mirrored with credit per the project's photo policy. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, agency, ownership, 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, 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.