Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho
Columbia Ridge Lookout
Nez Perce National Forest lookout 16 miles SW of Elk City, Idaho: 50-foot L-4 pole tower built about 1933, knocked over 1963; no source describes the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. No source we read describes what, if anything, 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?
- Yes, you can drive up
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerL-4 pole towerThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1933
- Height
- 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Nez Perce National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Idaho County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 45.63112, −115.60526
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-columbia-ridge
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 3.9 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
- 1933 Built50-foot pole L-4 tower, built about 1933Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
- No record between 1933 and 1963
- 1963 DestroyedKnocked over; the firelookout.com header gives 1965 instead, see resolved_conflictsSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.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.
Columbia Ridge Lookout stood 16 miles southwest of Elk City, in the Nez Perce National Forest, at 7,861 feet.1,2,3
The lookout was a 50-foot pole L-4 tower, built about 1933.1,2,3 The Idaho Fire Lookouts page labels the site drive-up, so the tower could once be reached by road.2
The tower was knocked over in 1963, and the sources give that year as its destruction date.1,2,3 One header on firelookout.com gives the span as 1933 to 1965, which disagrees with the 1963 date used elsewhere on that page and in the other two sources.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks the tower as gone.4
No source I read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether it is open to the public. Check with the Nez Perce National Forest before visiting the area.
- Columbia Ridge Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/columbiaridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Columbia Ridge Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/columbia-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259204 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Forest Fire Lookout Association Idaho lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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.
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: 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
- 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
- Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts (USDA Forest Service) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Columbia Ridge on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Columbia Ridge 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.