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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Boundary Peak Lookout

Clearwater NF lookout built in 1934. Sources disagree on whether it was abandoned and gone by 1964 or burned in 1954. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1964 according to two lookout-history pages; the Forest Service list says it burned in 1954.

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 tower20-foot L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.36913, −115.52358
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-boundary-peak-2

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 4.1 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 Built20-foot L-4 tower per firelookout.com and idahofirelookouts.com; the Forest Service list says L-4 cabinSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
  2. No record between 1934 and 1954
  3. 1954 BurnedForest Service Clearwater list says burned in 1954; the other two pages say abandoned in the 1950sSource: fs.usda.gov
  4. 1964 EventListed as gone by 1964Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 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.

Boundary Peak Lookout sat about 15 miles southeast of Pierce, in Idaho County, on the Clearwater National Forest.1,2 The site is listed at 5,243 feet.1

The lookout was built in 1934 as a 20-foot L-4 tower on the peak's northeast point.1,2 The Forest Service's list of Clearwater lookouts describes an L-4 cabin for the same year instead.3

The ending is disputed. Two lookout-history pages say the lookout was abandoned in the 1950s and was gone by 1964.1,2 The Forest Service list says it burned in 1954.3 The sources do not reconcile the two accounts.

Idaho Fire Lookouts files the site as drive-up.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks the tower as gone.4 No source we read says what, if anything, remains on the site today, or whether the road to it is still open.1,2

  1. Boundary Peak Fire Lookout Tower, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/id/boundarypeak268.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Boundary Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/boundary-peak-lookout-2/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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. 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

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