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Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Bruin Hill Lookout

Cupola cabin built in 1932 in the Clearwater National Forest and gone by 1959; no source describes what remains today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1959; no source describes what, if anything, remains.

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?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabcupola cabinThe design: Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.76074, −114.91375
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-bruin-hill

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

  1. 1932 BuiltCupola cabinSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1932 and 1959
  3. 1959 AbandonedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
  4. 1959 RemovedGone by 1959Sources: firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
  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.

Bruin Hill is in the Clearwater National Forest, in Clearwater County, at about 6,504 feet.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the same elevation and forest.2 It lies about 17 miles east-northeast of the Kelly Creek Ranger Station, in Section 35, Township 40 North, Range 12 East.1,3 A cupola cabin went up there in 1932.1,2 The lookout also had a patrol point on Fern Mountain, about two miles to the west-southwest.1,2 A photo on the firelookout.com page is credited to Harold Coffman.1

The cabin was gone by 1959, according to both the firelookout.com page and the Forest Service's 2016 list of Clearwater lookouts.1,3 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in.2

No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today.

  1. Bruin Hill Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/bruinhill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Bruin Hill Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/bruin-hill-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, list compiled June 2016, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (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: 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) 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
  5. 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.