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Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

French Mountain Lookout

Clearwater County, Idaho lookout on the Clearwater National Forest: 40-foot pole L-4 tower built 1932, abandoned 1948. Record status 'gone' is not supported by the sources.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1948; no source says whether any of the tower still stands.

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 L-4 tower with two patrol crow's nest platformsThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.50337, −115.71711
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-french-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 its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.7 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. 1932 Built40-foot pole L-4 towerSources: firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1932 and 1948
  3. 1948 AbandonedSources: firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov, 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.

French Mountain lies about 4 miles east of Pierce, in Clearwater County, Idaho, on the Clearwater National Forest, at 5,327 feet.1,2 The Forest Service list places it in section 33, township 37 north, range 6 east.2

A 40-foot pole L-4 tower went up there in 1932, and the site also had two patrol crow's nest platforms.1,2,3 The lookout was abandoned in 1948.1,2,3

firelookout.com's heading dates the lookout from 1932 and leaves the end year as a question mark.1 No source I read says the tower was taken down, and none describes what remains on the mountain today. A recreation listing for a French Mountain summit in Clearwater County mentions no structure.4

  1. French Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/frenchmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. French Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/french-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. French Mountain, Komoot, https://www.komoot.com/highlight/7815211 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

French Mountain Lookout
French Mountain LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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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: photos, 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, height, status, agency, 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.