FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Burnt Knob

Pole tower with L-4 cab built 1933 on Payette NF; destroyed in 1960; sources disagree on height (10 or 15 feet); no source describes remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1960; 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?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as Hike-In; no source describes what remains today

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerPole tower with L-4 cab (1933)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Payette National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.46834, −115.28288
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-burnt-knob-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 3.6 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. 1915 StaffedElmer Purdyman, per Idaho Fire Lookouts citing the Idaho County Free Press; predates the 1933 towerSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1915 and 1933
  3. 1933 BuiltPole tower with L-4 cab; sources give 10 feet or 15 feetSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1933 and 1960
  5. 1960 DestroyedDestroyedSources: 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.

Burnt Knob stands at 7,339 feet in Idaho County, on the Payette National Forest.1,2 It lies seven miles north-northwest of Chamberlain G.S.1

A pole tower with an L-4 cab went up in 1933.1,2,3 The sources disagree on its height. firelookout.com gives 10 feet, while Idaho Fire Lookouts and an Idaho County listing that credits Kresek give 15 feet.1,2,3

Idaho Fire Lookouts names Elmer Purdyman as a known staffer, with a 1915 date taken from the Idaho County Free Press.2 That date is earlier than the 1933 tower.2

The tower was destroyed in 1960.1,2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list also marks it as gone.4

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as a hike-in, and no source describes what remains there today.2

  1. Burnt Knob Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/burntknob307.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Burnt Knob - Idaho Fire Lookouts, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/burnt-knob/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Burnt Knob - FOREST LOOKOUTS, idaholookouts.weebly.com, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/burnt-knob1.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Burnt Knob
Burnt KnobPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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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: photos, 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.