FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Kootenai County, Idaho

Buckles

Also known as Buckles Mountain

L-4 pole lookout near Hayden Lake: a crow's nest around 1929, pole towers in 1931 and 1934, destroyed about 1955.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed about 1955; 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?
Yes, you can drive up

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a pole towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1929
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Kootenai County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.85057, −116.60907
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-buckles

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 4.1 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 BuiltCrow's nest, c.1929Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1931 BuiltPole tower with an L-4 cab; the sources give 30 feet and 20 feetSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1934 Built40-foot pole tower with an enclosed cab, about 1/4 mile south (Idaho Fire Lookouts gives 1/2 mile)Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1934 and 1955
  5. 1955 Destroyedc.1955 per Kresek via the Forest Lookouts pageSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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.

Buckles is in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, in Kootenai County, about 10 miles northeast of Hayden Lake, at 4,737 feet.1 The Forest Lookouts page lists the code 52N-2W-16 for it, which reads as township 52 North, range 2 West, section 16.2

The first structure listed there was a crow's nest, around 1929.1,2 A pole tower with an L-4 cab followed in 1931.1,2 The sources disagree on its height. The firelookout.com page gives 30 feet, while the Forest Lookouts page, which cites Kresek, gives 20 feet.1,2

In 1934 a 40-foot pole tower with an enclosed cab went up about a quarter mile to the south.1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts puts that distance at half a mile.3 The site was destroyed around 1955.1,3,2

Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site as drive-up.3 No source describes what, if anything, remains there today.

  1. Buckles Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/buckles.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Buckles, Forest Lookouts, western US, citing Kresek, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/buckles.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Buckles Mountain, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/buckles-mountain/ (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: design, height, 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.