FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Brown Creek #2 Lookout

Pole tower with L-4 cab built 1934 after a 1913 log cabin with crow's nest; destroyed in the 1960s; no source describes remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in the 1960s; no source describes remains at the site

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
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts marks the site Drive-Up; no source describes what remains today

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab (1934)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1913
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater Timber Protective Association
Land
Unknown
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.32278, −115.82422 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-brown-creek-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 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. 1913 BuiltLog cabin with crow's nest, as listed on firelookout.com and Idaho Fire LookoutsSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1913 and 1934
  3. 1934 AbandonedPatrol point, a 135-foot tree platform about one mile SSESources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1934 Built40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab at the south end of the ridgeSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. No record between 1934 and 1960
  6. 1960 DestroyedSources give only the 1960s; 1960 is the start of the decade, not a confirmed yearSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  7. 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.

Brown Creek #2 stood in Clearwater County, Idaho, at about 4,279 feet.1,2 Its earliest record is a log cabin with a crow's nest, dated 1913.3,1 In 1934 a 40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab went up at the south end of the ridge.3,1 That same year a patrol point about a mile to the south-southeast, a 135-foot tree platform, was abandoned.3,1

Records place the lookout with the Clearwater Timber Protective Association, and a county index gives its survey location as 34N-5E-03.2 The tower was destroyed in the 1960s.3,1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks it as gone and gives its position as 46.32278 north, 115.82422 west.4

Idaho Fire Lookouts marks the site as drive-up, but no source describes what remains on the ridge today.1

  1. Brown Creek #2 Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/brown-creek-2-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Brown's Creek #2 - FOREST LOOKOUTS, idaholookouts.weebly.com, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/browns-creek-2.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Brown Creek #2 Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/browncreek2.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

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 1.7 km (1.1 mi).

    • FFLA: 46.32278, −115.82422
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 46.31556, −115.80472

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

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, 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, 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.