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Fire lookout · Idaho

Grouse Point Lookout

Clearwater National Forest lookout site: a 30-foot tower with L-4 cab built 1933, burned in the August 1934 Pete King Fire.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Burned in the August 1934 Pete King Fire; no source describes what remains at the site.

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
Listed by Idaho Fire Lookouts as a hike-in site.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Type unknown30-foot tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Idaho
Coordinates
46.36535, −115.34260
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-grouse-point-3

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 3.9 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. 1933 Built30-foot tower with L-4 cab; the 1981 Hartig account says construction was completed that yearSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
  2. 1933 First staffedtent camp with Russell Stadtman as lookout manSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1934 Burnedburned in the Pete King Fire, August 1934Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
  4. 1934 DestroyedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
  5. 1934 FirePete King Fire, started by lightning on August 11Source: lessons.wildfire.gov
  6. 1934 Last staffedtower manned for the first and last timeSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Grouse Point is a former lookout site in the Clearwater National Forest, about three miles north of the Lochsa Ranger Station, at 5,000 feet.1,2

The point was first used in 1933, when a tent camp went up with a lookout man, Russell Stadtman, and a crew built a 30-foot tower with an L-4 cabin that same year.3,4,1 The sources call the frame a pole, round timber or log tower, so the exact build is unclear.1,2,3

The tower was staffed for the only time in 1934. That August the Pete King Fire burned it down.3,1,2,4 Lightning started the fire early on August 11, during a storm that also sparked other blazes nearby.5 Two Civilian Conservation Corps crew members were killed by falling trees on the fire, the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center reports.5

Nobody staffed the point after that, and the site fell out of use.3 No source I found describes what remains at the site today. The Idaho Fire Lookouts page lists the site as hike-in.1

  1. Grouse Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/grouse-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Grouse Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/grousepoint269.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho County (A-L) - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/idaho-county-a-l.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Pete King Fire Hit by Tree Fatalities 1934, Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center, https://lessons.wildfire.gov/incident/pete-king-fire-hit-by-tree-fatalities-1934 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) Gave us: name, location, status, 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
  2. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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.