FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Boundary County, Idaho

Copper Mountain Lookout

Pole tower with an L-4 cab from 1934 on Copper Mountain, Boundary County, Idaho; named lookouts 1946-1951; listed as gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as gone by three sources. None gives a year or method for the removal.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Hike-in site on Kaniksu National Forest land. The level is inferred from the hike-in listing; no source states an access rule.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Listed as a hike-in by Idaho Fire Lookouts; no route or distance is given.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerPole tower with an L-4 cab (1934)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Boundary County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.97317, −116.09882
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-copper-mountain

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. 1934 BuiltPole tower with an L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1946 StaffedEarliest of four named lookouts on record (1946, 1947, 1949, 1951)Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1951 StaffedLatest of four named lookouts on recordSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Copper Mountain Lookout stood on a summit about three miles southeast of Eastport, in Boundary County, Idaho, within the Kaniksu National Forest.1,2,3 The summit is listed at 6,196 feet.1 The lookout index places the site at latitude 48.97317 and longitude -116.09882.4 Idaho Fire Lookouts files it under Northern Idaho.2

The first entry in the record is from 1934, when the lookout was a pole tower with an L-4 cab on top.1,2

Four lookouts are on record for 1946, 1947, 1949 and 1951.1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the same names and invites readers to add staffing details.2

The tower is now listed as gone.1,2,4 Idaho Fire Lookouts describes the site as a hike-in.2 No source describes what remains at the site today, so a visitor should not expect a tower there.2,4

  1. Copper Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/coppermtn233.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Copper Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com), https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/copper-mountain-lookout-2/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Copper Mountain, Forest Lookouts, Idaho Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/copper-mountain1.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Lookout list for Idaho, firelookout.org, 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: 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: agency, ownership, 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, 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.