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Fire lookout · Adams County, Idaho

Council Mountain Lookout

Payette NF ground lookout in Adams County: tent camp 1909, house burned 1923 per newspaper, cab 1933, gone by 1966 when disposed of by burning.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Lookout house disposed of by burning in 1966 per Forest Lookouts; firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts also date its loss to 1966. A 2019 photo caption refers to 'what remains' without describing it.

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. On Payette National Forest land. No source says the site is closed or restricted, and none describes the site now. The level is an inference from the land status.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site hike-in. The climbing page describes the peak as roadless with primitive trails; no source gives a route to the lookout site.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabR-4 or L-4 cab (sources disagree)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1923
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Payette National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Adams County, Idaho
Coordinates
44.72030, −116.28038 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-council-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 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. 1909 EventTent camp lookout established, per firelookout.com, Idaho Fire Lookouts and Forest Lookouts.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1923 BuiltForest Lookouts dates a new ground cabin to 1923 to 1924. The other two pages date a log cabin to 1924.Sources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1923 BurnedLookout house burned to the ground on the night of July 17, per a July 22, 1923 newspaper report quoted by Forest Lookouts. Cause not determined.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1933 BuiltR-4 cab per firelookout.com and Forest Lookouts; Idaho Fire Lookouts calls it an L-4 cab, 1 mile northwest.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1942 StaffedLeonard Williams listed as known lookout staff.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  6. No record between 1942 and 1959
  7. 1959 AbandonedCoast and Geodetic Survey 1959 station description calls the lookout house abandoned; peakbagging.com caption says abandoned by 1959.Sources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, peakbagging.com
  8. 1966 RemovedForest Lookouts: structure disposed of by burning. Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts say gone in 1966.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  9. 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.

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists Council Mountain as a ground lookout that is gone.1 It stood in the Payette National Forest in Adams County, Idaho, about seven miles east of Council, at 7,900 feet.2,3,4 A tent camp lookout was set up there in 1909.4 A log cabin followed in 1924, according to firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts.2,3

Forest Lookouts tells a different early story. It quotes a newspaper report dated July 22, 1923, that says the lookout house was destroyed by fire on the night of July 17 and that the cause has not been determined.4 The same page dates a replacement ground cabin to 1923 to 1924.4 The 1923 report calls the burned house among the most up-to-date in district four and says it cost roughly $800 to build.4

The cab built in 1933 is an R-4 in firelookout.com and Forest Lookouts, but Idaho Fire Lookouts calls it an L-4.2,3,4 Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts both list Leonard Williams as known staff in 1942.2,3

A 1959 Coast and Geodetic Survey station description calls the lookout house abandoned and gives it a footprint of about 12 feet square, a height of 15 feet, and a pointed roof.4 Peakbagging.com's photo caption says the lookout was abandoned by 1959 and gone in 1966.5 Forest Lookouts says the structure was disposed of by burning in 1966, and firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts also date its loss to 1966.2,3,4

Peakbagging.com has a photo taken August 18, 2019, captioned as showing "what remains" of the lookout, but the caption does not say what is left.5 The same caption places the lookout about 0.8 miles north of, and 125 feet below, the Council benchmark.5 No source describes the site now. The Council Mountain climbing page says the peak sits in a roadless area with primitive trails around it, but no source gives a route to the lookout site.6 Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site as hike-in.3 No source says whether the public may visit it.

  1. Idaho Lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Council Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/councilmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Council Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/council-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Council Mountain, Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/council-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Council (LO site), Idaho, peakbagging.com, http://www.peakbagging.com/IDLookoutPhotos/Council%20LO.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  6. Council Mountain, SummitPost, https://www.summitpost.org/council-mountain/699928 (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 1.4 km (0.9 mi).

    • FFLA: 44.72030, −116.28038
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 44.71072, −116.26930

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

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.