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Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Billings (Summit)

Pole platform 1927; wooden L-6 tower completed around 1938; renamed Billings Point in 1948; removed or destroyed in 1962. No source describes the site now.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower removed or destroyed in 1962 (sources differ on the word). No source describes what remains at the site now.

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerPole platform (1927), then an 84- to 86-foot wooden L-6 tower with an L-4 type ground cabin (late 1930s)The designs: L-4, L-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1927
Height
86 ft (26.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater Timber Protective Association
Land
Unknown
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.59890, −115.79500
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-billings-summit

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 3.7 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. 1927 BuiltPole platform tower (Summit Lookout)Sources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  2. 1937 Built84-foot wooden L-6 tower with ground cabin, per firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts; the 1942 association report says 1938Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  3. 1938 BuiltConstructed in 1938 per the 1942 Clearwater TPA annual report; a January 1939 item says the 86-foot tower was completed that summerSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1948 EventFormerly Summit Lookout, renamed C.L. Billings point after a past association presidentSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1955 DestroyedVirtually destroyed in the fall, during hunting season, per the association reportSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1956 RestoredRestored, per the combined 1955-56 association reportSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1962 DestroyedFirelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts both say destroyed in 1962Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  8. 1962 RemovedAfter the 1962 fire season the tower, in poor condition, was removed; better detection made it no longer cost effective (association report)Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  9. 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.

Billings (Summit) was a lookout on a peak near Headquarters, Idaho, in the Clearwater tree farm.1 A 1949 account, quoted by Forest Lookouts, said the peak overlooks more than 300,000 acres of that tree farm.1

A pole platform went up in 1927.1,2 A larger wooden tower followed in the late 1930s. Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts give 1937 for the 84-foot tower, while a 1942 association report says it was constructed in 1938.2,3,1 A January 1939 item in the Lewiston Morning Tribune said the new 86-foot tower was completed that summer, along with a ground-level smokechaser cabin of L-4 type on a cement foundation.1

Firelookout.com calls the tower an L-6 design, so the L-4 type in the 1939 item seems to refer to the cabin.2,1 The same 1942 report counted it among 20 lookouts the association operated in fire season.1

In 1948 the lookout, formerly Summit Lookout, was renamed for C.L. Billings, a past association president, by action of the State Land Board and association directors.1 In the fall of 1955, during hunting season, the tower was nearly destroyed, but the association's report says it was restored.1

After the 1962 fire season, the association's report says the tower, in poor condition, was removed, and better detection methods made it no longer cost effective.1 Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts both say it was destroyed in 1962.2,3

Today, none of these sources describes what, if anything, remains on the summit, or whether the site is open to visitors.1,3,2

  1. Billings - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (Idaho), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/billings.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Billings (Summit) Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/billings.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Billings (Summit) Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/billings-summit-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Billings (Summit) Lookout
Billings (Summit) LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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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, 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
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, height, agency, 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, 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

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