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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Dam Ridge Lookout

St. Joe NF lookout with an L-4 tower from 1934, destroyed 1954. No documented staffing; FFLA lists the tower gone and no source describes the site now.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed 1954 per two lookout-history pages; the FFLA list marks the tower gone

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 labels the site Hike-In and gives its elevation as 5,050 feet. No source describes its current condition.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 tower, 1934The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.40417, −115.97206
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-dam-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.8 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 BuiltL-4 towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1954
  3. 1954 Destroyedno cause given in these sourcesSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 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.

Dam Ridge Lookout stood in the St. Joe National Forest.1 Its L-4 tower went up in 1934.1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the site's elevation as 5,050 feet and calls it a hike-in site.2 The page says it has no documented staffing history for the lookout.2

The tower was destroyed in 1954.1,2 Both lookout-history pages give the same 1934 and 1954 dates.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list places the site in Shoshone County and marks the tower as gone. It gives the site's coordinates as 47.40417 and -115.97206.3

No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether the public can reach it. Anyone planning a trip should check with the St. Joe National Forest first.

  1. Dam Ridge Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/damridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Dam Ridge Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/dam-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts (by Region), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id/id-rg/ (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: dates, 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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, 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.