FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Carey Dome Fire Lookout

1934 Aermotor steel tower in Payette National Forest, NRHP-listed in 1994, still staffed in recent summers.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Active Forest Service lookout, drive-up access per idahofirelookouts.com; not a public rental

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Staffing
Staffed during fire season (as of 2016)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor 721 steel tower, 7x7 ft steel cab, 85 ft tallThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Height
85 ft (25.9 m)
Elevation
7,667 ft (2,337 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Payette National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.40130, −115.90391
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-carey-dome

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

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. 1934 BuiltAermotor steel tower assembledSources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org
  2. 1943 AlteredLog cabin residence addedSource: en.wikipedia.org
  3. No record between 1943 and 1994
  4. 1994 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesListed on NRHP March 25, 1994Source: en.wikipedia.org
  5. 1998 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on NHLR June 1, 1998Source: nhlr.org
  6. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Carey Dome Lookout went up in 1934 on a ridge in what was then the Payette National Forest, about nine miles north of the Burgdorf Guard Station in Idaho County.1,2 The Forest Service put up an Aermotor Company steel tower, 85 feet from the ground to the cab, topped with a 7-by-7-foot steel cab.2 A log cabin for the lookout's living quarters was added nine years later, in 1943, and a weather station went in sometime in the 1950s or earlier.2 The complex still stands at an elevation of roughly 7,667 to 7,681 feet, depending on the source.1,3

The tower was staffed through the decades that followed, though full records are thin. Known observers include David Hargraves in 1970-71, John LeClair in 1975, Bill Griffin in 2012, Kathy Martin in 2013, and Sharon Morning in 2016.3 One source describes Carey Dome as the last active fire tower on the old Payette National Forest and says it has been staffed every summer in recent years.1,4

Carey Dome was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 25, 1994, with the listing covering the tower and weather station as contributing structures, the log cabin as a contributing building, and a flagpole as non-contributing.2 It was also placed on the National Historic Lookout Register in 1998.1

As of the most recent reporting available, the lookout remains standing and in use for fire detection, reachable by road rather than trail.3 It is an active Forest Service facility rather than a public rental, so anyone visiting should respect its working status and any posted restrictions.

  1. Carey Dome Fire Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/carey-dome-fire-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Carey Dome Fire Lookout, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carey_Dome_Fire_Lookout (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Carey Dome, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/carey-dome/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  4. Carey Dome Lookout Tower, Fire Lookout Tower Register (firelookout.com), https://www.firelookout.com/id/careydome.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Carey Dome Fire Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
July 2017 photo
July 2017 photo (2017)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
July 2017 photo
July 2017 photo (2017)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
July 2017 photo
July 2017 photo (2017)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Carey Dome L.O.
Carey Dome L.OPhoto: Chuck Redman, via firelookout.com · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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 year it was built.

    • NHLR: 1934
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1934
    • Wikidata: 1934
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 1932

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: what it is built of, design, staffing, photos, 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
  4. 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
  5. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: register numbers, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  6. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height, 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
  7. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, 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.