Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho
Bear Creek Lookout Site
20-foot pole L-4 lookout in northern Idaho, built 1934 and gone about 1961; no staffing history found and no source describes the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed or destroyed about 1961; the sources differ on which, and none describes the site 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?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in; no access rules found
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower20-foot pole tower of the L-4 typeThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Wood
- Built
- 1934
- Height
- 20 ft (6.1 m)
- Elevation
- 3,414 ft (1,041 m)
- Agency
- Priest Lake TPA/IDL
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Bonner County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 48.65739, −116.83387
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-bear-creek
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 4.3 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
- 1934 Built20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, per the register, Idaho Fire Lookouts and Rex's pageSources: firetower.org, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1934 and 1961
- 1961 DestroyedFirelookout.com, Idaho Fire Lookouts and Rex's say destroyed about 1961; the register says removed about 1961Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- No record between 1961 and 2013
- 2013 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: February 20, 2013Source: FFLOS register entry
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Bear Creek was a fire lookout in northern Idaho.1 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register says a 20-foot pole tower of the L-4 type went up in 1934.2 Idaho Fire Lookouts and Rex's Fire Lookout Page give the same year and tower type.1,3
We found no staffing history. Idaho Fire Lookouts says it does not yet have a documented record of who staffed the tower, and it asks readers who know to get in touch.1
The tower ended about 1961.2 Three sites give that year as the date it was destroyed.4,1,3 The register says it was removed about that time, so the sources differ on whether it came down or was destroyed.2 Firelookout.com lists the agency as Priest Lake TPA/IDL.4
None of the sources we read describes the site today, so we cannot say what, if anything, remains on the ground. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in.1 We found no rules about access, so check with the managing agency before going.
- Bear Creek Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/bear-creek-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Bear Creek Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/id/bear-creek-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Bear Creek, Forest Lookouts (Rex's Fire Lookout Page), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/bear-creek.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Bear Creek Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/bearcreek.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
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
- Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, 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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) Gave us: dates, photos, 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: design, height, 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, 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
- FFLOS register entry US 1542 (firetower.org) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Bear Creek on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Bear Creek Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Bear Creek on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.