FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Lemhi County, Idaho

Hot Springs Lookout

Lemhi County lookout: 1930s log cabin, 1940 L-4 cab, abandoned 1950, burned in 2000; no source describes what remains at the site.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Burned in 2000; 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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab (1940); earlier log cabin (1930s)The design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1930
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Salmon National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lemhi County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.31960, −114.35322
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-hot-springs

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. 1930 BuiltLog cabin; sources date it only to the 1930sSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1940 BuiltL-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1949 EventMissing a window and two shutters; winds had gotten out of hand, per a Recorder Herald item quoted by Forest LookoutsSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1950 AbandonedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. No record between 1950 and 2000
  6. 2000 BurnedBurned in a wildfireSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. 2000 DestroyedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.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.

Hot Springs Lookout stood in Lemhi County, Idaho, about 24 miles northwest of Salmon, on Salmon National Forest land.1,2,3 The sources date its first building, a log cabin, only to the 1930s.1,2,3 By 1940 the site had an L-4 cab.1,2,3

The Forest Lookouts page quotes a Recorder Herald item from August 25, 1949.3 It describes afternoon winds that had gotten out of hand, and says the lookout was then missing a window and two shutters.3 The lookout was abandoned in 1950.1,2

It burned in 2000.1,2,3 Forest Lookouts says it burned in a wildfire.3

Today the sources describe no remains. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in.2 No source we read says what, if anything, is left at the site now, or whether visitors may go there.

  1. Hot Springs Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/id/hotsprings.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Hot Springs Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/hot-springs-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Hot Springs, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/hot-springs.html (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: what it is built of, design, agency, ownership, 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, 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.