Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho
Clear Creek Lookout
20-foot L-4 tower in the Nez Perce National Forest, Idaho County, Idaho, built 1931 and abandoned 1949; listed as gone; no source describes the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1949 and listed as gone; 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?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as a hike-in
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower20-foot tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1931
- Height
- 20 ft (6.1 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Nez Perce National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Idaho County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 45.98085, −115.73092 sources disagree
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-clear-creek
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 4.3 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
- 1931 Built20-foot tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, fs.usda.gov
- No record between 1931 and 1949
- 1949 AbandonedListed as abandoned in 1949, then goneSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, fs.usda.gov
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Clear Creek was a 20-foot tower with an L-4 cab in the Nez Perce National Forest, about 16 miles southeast of Kooskia in Idaho County, Idaho.1,2,3
The tower dates to 1931 and was abandoned in 1949.1,2,3 Two listings give its elevation as 4,988 feet.1,4
The Forest Service's list, compiled in April 2010 from Ray Kresek's Fire Lookouts of the Northwest and other miscellaneous sources, gives the same dates.3
The Forest Service list places the tower in township 31 North, range 6 East, section 32.3
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists it as a hike-in site.4 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it as gone.5
We found no source that describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether it is open to visitors.
- Clear Creek Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/clearcreek.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho County (A-L), Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/idaho-county-a-l.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259204 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Clear Creek Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/clear-creek-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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 830 m.
- FFLA: 45.98085, −115.73092
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 45.98818, −115.72873
The map uses the position from FFLA.
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) Gave us: 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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
- Idaho County (A-L) (Forest Lookouts) (opens another site)
- Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts (U.S. Forest Service) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Clear Creek on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Clear Creek Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.