FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Dull Axe Lookout

Clearwater County tower on a site with earlier lookouts; sources disagree on what happened in 1957: two list the lookout as destroyed, one says the 40-foot tower was removed, and none describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed or removed in 1957 (sources differ); 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?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab (1934), with a 60-foot pole tower with L-6 cab half a mile northThe designs: L-4, L-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater Timber Protective Association (merged into Clearwater-Potlatch Timber Protective Association in 1966)
Land
Unknown
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.68888, −115.77672
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-dull-axe

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 4.1 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. 1915 EventCrow's nestSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1924 EventPole platformSource: firelookout.com
  3. 1927 EventLog cabinSource: firelookout.com
  4. 1934 Built60-foot pole tower with L-6 cab, half a mile northSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. No record between 1934 and 1957
  6. 1957 DestroyedListed as destroyed by firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts (names the lookout, not a specific tower)Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  7. 1957 RemovedForest Lookouts says the 40-foot tower was removed, citing a Clearwater TPA annual reportSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  8. 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.

Dull Axe Lookout stood in Clearwater County, about 26 miles northeast of Orofino.1 The Clearwater Timber Protective Association is the agency listed for it.2

Before the tower, the site had other lookout structures. Firelookout.com dates a crow's nest there to 1915, a pole platform to 1924 and a log cabin to 1927.1 In 1934 a 40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab went up, and a 60-foot pole tower with an L-6 cab stood half a mile north.1,3

The sources differ on what happened in 1957. Firelookout.com and the Idaho Fire Lookouts site both list the lookout as destroyed that year.1,3 The Forest Lookouts site says the 40-foot tower was removed that year and cites an annual report from the Clearwater association.2

The agency changed later on. The Clearwater and Potlatch timber protective associations were formed separately in 1905, and they merged in 1966 into the Clearwater-Potlatch Timber Protective Association.4 The Idaho Fire Lookouts site labels the lookout a drive-up one, though it is gone.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks the tower as gone.5

We found no source that describes what remains of the site today, or whether the public can reach it.

  1. Dull Axe Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/id/dullaxe.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Dull Axe, Forest Lookouts (Idaho listings), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/dull-axe.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Dull Axe Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/dull-axe-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Clearwater-Potlatch Timber Protective Association, About Us, https://www.cptpa.com/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, 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: 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height, agency, 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, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.