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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Buzzard Roost Lookout

Shoshone County lookout site: camp in 1919, L-4 cab in 1935 with a crow's nest on Mulligan Hump, destroyed 1954; the FFLA list marks it gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. FFLA lists it as Gone; both pages date destruction to 1954; no source describes what 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
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.98744, −115.67998
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-buzzard-roost

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. 1919 EventCampSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1919 and 1935
  3. 1935 BuiltL-4 cab; the crow's nest stood two miles east atop Mulligan HumpSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. No record between 1935 and 1954
  5. 1954 DestroyedDestroyed; no cause givenSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.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.

Buzzard Roost began as a camp in 1919, about 20 miles south-southeast of Avery in Shoshone County, Idaho.1,2

The site got an L-4 cab in 1935.1,2 The sources place its crow's nest two miles east, atop Mulligan Hump, on the St. Joe National Forest.1,2

Idaho Fire Lookouts has no documented staffing history for the site.2

Both sources date its destruction to 1954, and neither describes how it was destroyed.1,2

Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site drive-up. That describes how to reach it, and the page does not say whether the land is open to visitors.2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists Buzzard Roost as a ground lookout that is gone.3 The pages we read do not describe what, if anything, remains on the site today.

  1. Buzzard Roost Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/id/buzzardroost.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Buzzard Roost Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/buzzard-roost-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, staffing, 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.