FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Boundary County, Idaho

Buck Mountain Lookout

Kaniksu National Forest lookout near Bonners Ferry; the sources disagree on its build date, and it was abandoned in 1962.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1962; 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 cablog cupola cabinThe design: Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1929
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Boundary County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.56220, −116.14932 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-buck-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 4.1 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. 1929 BuiltPartly complete in August 1929 per a Pend Oreille Review item quoted by the Forest Lookouts page; firelookout.com dates the log cupola cabin to the 1920sSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1933 StaffedPat Parsons named as known lookout personnelSource: firelookout.com
  3. No record between 1933 and 1950
  4. 1950 EventNot used or maintained after 1950, per the 1962 reportSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1962 AbandonedAbandoned in 1962Source: firelookout.com
  6. 1962 RemovedThe 1962 report says the towers were being toppled and burned; completion is not confirmedSource: idaholookouts.weebly.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.

Buck Mountain is in the Kaniksu National Forest, 11 miles southeast of Bonners Ferry in Boundary County, at 5,600 feet.1

The sources do not agree on when the first lookout was built. The firelookout.com page describes a log cupola cabin from the 1920s.1 A Pend Oreille Review item dated August 1, 1929, quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, says the lookout was partly complete by then.2 A 1962 Sandpoint News Bulletin report, also quoted there, says the six lookouts it names, Buck Mountain among them, were built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.2

The firelookout.com page names Pat Parsons as known lookout personnel in 1933.1 It gives 1962 as the year the lookout was abandoned.1 The 1962 report says the lookouts had gone unused and unmaintained since 1950, the year the agency began relying more on aerial patrols.2

The sources disagree on what survived. The firelookout.com page says a 30-foot pole platform from the 1940s was still there,1 while the 1962 report describes the towers being toppled and burned.2

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in.3 No source describes what remains at the site today.

  1. Buck Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/buckmtn233.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Buck Mountain, Forest Lookouts, western US, quoting the Pend Oreille Review (1929) and the Sandpoint News Bulletin (1962), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/buck-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Buck Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/buck-mountain-lookout/ (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 850 m.

    • FFLA: 48.56220, −116.14932
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 48.56410, −116.16046

    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. 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.