Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho
Boulder Mountain
Camp in 1915, then a cupola cabin built in 1927 on Boulder Mountain near Nordman; accidentally burned in 1935 and never replaced.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Accidentally burned down in 1935 and was never replaced
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 lists the site as hike-in; no source describes access today
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Ground-level cabcupola cabin built in 1927, after a 1915 campThe design: Cupola house
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1927
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Kaniksu National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Bonner County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 48.75127, −116.99501 sources disagree
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-boulder-mountain
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 4.2 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
- 1915 EventCamp established on the siteSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1927 BuiltCupola cabin builtSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1935 BurnedAccidentally burned down; never replacedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Boulder Mountain in Bonner County began as a camp in 1915. The site sat in the Kaniksu National Forest, about 8 miles north-northwest of Nordman, at an elevation of 5,654 feet.1,2
In 1927 a cupola cabin went up on the site. Firelookout.com, Idaho Fire Lookouts and the Forest Lookouts list agree on all three dates.1,2,3
An accidental fire destroyed the cabin in 1935, and no replacement was built.1,2,3
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in.2 No source describes what remains at the site today, or whether it is open to visitors.
- Boulder Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/bouldermtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Boulder Mountain, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/boulder-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Boulder Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/boulder-mountain2.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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Where sources disagree
We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.
Sources disagree on the location by 2.4 km (1.5 mi).
- FFLA: 48.75127, −116.99501
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 48.75992, −117.02495
The map uses the position from FFLA.
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: 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: 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: 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Boulder Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Boulder Mountain on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Boulder Mountain 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.