Fire lookout · Canyon County, Idaho
Big Tower (USFWS)
Also known as Big Tower
Canyon County, ID 100-foot Aermotor tower on Deer Flat NWR near Nampa; reported built 1937 as a fire lookout; refuge plans removal pending an archaeological review.
- Standing
- Closed
- Verified
Closed
The site is closed to visitors. The area behind the refuge headquarters is closed to visitors; the tower is fenced and cannot be climbed. Officials say trespassers still climb it without permission.
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.
- Can you climb it?
- No
- Road to the top?
- Yes, you can drive up
- Trail
- Viewed from a roadside pullout by the headquarters gate on Lake Avenue in 2024. Viewing only; do not climb.
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower100-foot steel Aermotor towerThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- Steel
- Built
- 1937
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 2,605 ft (794 m)
- Agency
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Canyon County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 43.54887, −116.63806
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-big-tower-usfws
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 3.8 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
- 1937 BuiltIdaho Press says it was initially constructed in 1937 to serve as a fire lookout; the Roaming Civic could not confirm the build dateSources: idahopress.com, theroamingcivic.com
- 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Big Tower stands about three miles southwest of Nampa, Idaho, in the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge.1,2 It is a 100-foot steel Aermotor tower at about 2,605 feet above sea level.1,3
The Idaho Press reports that the tower was first built in 1937 to serve as a fire lookout and a perch for refuge staff along the Lake Lowell shoreline.2 The paper also says it was once used to count waterfowl and wildlife.2 The Roaming Civic could not find when it was built and found no confirmed record that it was used to detect wildfires.4 The sources differ on whether the tower ever served as a fire lookout, and the 1937 date rests on the Idaho Press alone.2,4
We found no documented staffing history for the tower, and no confirmed record that it was used to detect wildfires.3,4
The refuge removed the bottom set of stairs to discourage climbers, and a barbed wire fence has always surrounded the perimeter.2 Refuge officials plan to stop fixing that fence and take the tower down, and the refuge manager is concerned for public safety.2 The Idaho Press article we read carries no publication date, so the timing of these plans is unconfirmed.2 An archaeological review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in progress to work out how the tower would be taken apart. A review board may decide to salvage the tower or move it, and a removal timeline is due once that review ends.2
The tower was listed as standing when the Roaming Civic visited on July 14, 2024, and the Idaho lookout list still marks it as standing.4,5
The area behind the refuge headquarters is closed to visitors, and the tower cannot be climbed.4 A 2024 visitor watched it from a roadside pullout by the headquarters gate.4 Officials say people still climb it without permission, so please keep off it.2
- Big Tower Fire Lookout Tower, Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout site, https://www.firelookout.com/id/bigtower.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Concerned for public safety, officials to take down fire tower at refuge, Idaho Press, https://www.idahopress.com/news/local/concerned-for-public-safety-officials-to-take-down-fire-tower-at-refuge/article_b3fc7f8e-3771-5466-ad86-4c17b187a5e7.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Big Tower Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/big-tower-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Big Tower L.O., The Roaming Civic, https://theroamingcivic.com/2024/07/14/big-tower-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Idaho fire lookout list, firelookout.org, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) Gave us: elevation, what it is built of, design, agency, photos, 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: 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: 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, access, 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
- Concerned for public safety, officials to take down fire tower at refuge (Idaho Press) (opens another site)
- Big Tower L.O. (The Roaming Civic) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Big Tower on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Big Tower Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Big Tower 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.