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Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Fly Hill Lookout Site

Clearwater National Forest L-4 cab on a log crib, built 1934 and abandoned in the 1950s. No remains are described and no source covers the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Register says the cab is now gone. No source describes remains at the site.

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. Drive-up per Idaho Fire Lookouts. No source describes a closure or permit rule.

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
No cab stands. The sources give no route or visitor information.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Two-story buildingL-4The design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,342 ft (1,933 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.85550, −115.24040
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-fly-hill

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. 1931 StaffedMark E Lawrence listed as known staff by Idaho Fire Lookouts. Predates the 1934 build date; the sources do not explain the gap.Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1934 BuiltL-4 cab atop a log crib, per the register, firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1950
  4. 1950 AbandonedSources give only the 1950s decade; 1950 marks the start of that decade, not a dated event.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. No record between 1950 and 2011
  6. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered January 20, 2011.Source: firetower.org
  7. 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Fly Hill is a peak in Clearwater County, Idaho, in the Clearwater National Forest.1,2,3 Its lookout was an L-4 cab set on top of a log crib.1,2,4 Three sites date the cab to 1934, and the peak stands at 6,342 feet.1,2,4

The sources do not say why the cab was built. A Clearwater National Forest study of its lookouts says building expanded fast in the 1930s, and it ties that growth to the CCC and other government work programs.5 The online copy of that study stops after its introduction and omits the lookout list, so it does not mention Fly Hill by name.5

Staffing is thin. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists Mark E Lawrence as known staff for 1931, three years before the cab's 1934 date.4 The sources do not explain that gap. None of the sources describes a notable fire at the site. An October 1920 newspaper item appears under the Fly Hill heading on the Forest Lookouts Idaho page. It describes a "Fly camp" about seven miles south of Chamberlain Basin, but it does not name Fly Hill, so the sources do not tie it to this site.3

The register says the cab was abandoned in the 1950s and no longer stands.1 Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts give the same decade.2,4 The study's introduction says that from the late 1950s into the early 1960s, only lookouts with a proven high-detection record were replaced, and only once they became unusable.5 That is a general pattern, and the study does not say what happened at Fly Hill. The register recorded the site on January 20, 2011.1

No source describes remains at the site today. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as drive-up, with no notes on access or visitors.4 With no cab standing, there is no lookout to climb, and the sources give no route or visitor information.

  1. Fly Hill Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/id/fly-hill-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Fly Hill Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/flyhill.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Fly Hill - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts Idaho, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/fly-hill.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Fly Hill Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/fly-hill-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Fixed Fire Detection Lookout History on the Clearwater National Forest, Clearwater National Forest study (digital copy), https://nfsl.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/p17053coll2/id/28879/download (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Fly Hill Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Fly Hill Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: county, type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  6. 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.