FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Big Hill Lookout

Clearwater NF 50 ft L-4 tower; built 1932 or 1934 (sources differ), fire-damaged 1934, abandoned 1950s, burned about 1960; listed as gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cabin and tower declared surplus about 1960 and the tower destroyed by burning; firelookout.com and the St. Joe-Clearwater listing both say gone.

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?
Yes, you can drive up

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.15793, −115.63248
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-big-hill

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 4.0 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 Builtfirelookout.com and the Forest Service list give 1934; Hartig's 1981 history gives 1932 (see resolved_conflicts)Sources: firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
  2. 1934 FireFire closed in and the lookout had to evacuate the cabin; one tower leg was badly burned and had to be replacedSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1950
  4. 1950 AbandonedListed as abandoned in the 1950s (decade only)Sources: firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
  5. 1960 BurnedCabin and tower declared surplus about 1960; tower destroyed by burningSources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, fs.usda.gov
  6. 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.

Big Hill sits near the east end of a ridge, about 16 miles east of Kooskia, Idaho.1 Its lookout was a 50-foot tower with an L-4 cabin on top.2,3

Sources disagree on the year it went up.1,2,3 Louis Hartig's 1981 history of the Lochsa Ranger District says the Selway National Forest built it in 1932, at a cost of $2,000.2 Two other listings give 1934.1,3

In 1934 the point was an important spotting post for fires. That year a fire closed in, and the lookout had to leave the cabin. A badly burned tower leg had to be replaced.2

Listings say the lookout was abandoned in the 1950s.1,3

Around 1960 the cabin and tower were declared surplus. Lightning protection and other salvageable material were recovered, and the tower was then burned down.2,3

Today the lookout is listed as gone.1,4 The St. Joe-Clearwater listing also tags the site "Drive Up."4 We found no source that describes what, if anything, remains at the site today.1,4,2,3

  1. Big Hill Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/bighill267.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Big Hill - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts site, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/big-hill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Big Hill Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/big-hill-lookout/ (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: 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, height, 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, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.