Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho
Huckleberry Butte Lookout
Clearwater Timber Protective Association lookout 7 miles northeast of Orofino: pole platform 1923, log cabin 1930, 60-foot L-4 tower 1934, destroyed 1964.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1964
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?
- Yes, you can drive up
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower60-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1923
- Height
- 60 ft (18.3 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Clearwater Timber Protective Association
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Clearwater County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 46.52938, −116.11940
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-huckleberry-butte
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
- 1923 BuiltPole platform tower, the earliest entry on both lookout-history pagesSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- 1930 BuiltLog cabinSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- 1934 Built60-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- No record between 1934 and 1964
- 1964 DestroyedBoth lookout-history pages date the destruction to 1964; no cause givenSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Huckleberry Butte is listed at 3,729 feet, about seven miles northeast of Orofino, in Clearwater County, Idaho.1 The county inventory codes the site 37N-3E-19 and lists it under the Clearwater Timber Protective Association.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association page gives the agency as CTPA.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts files the site under its St. Joe-Clearwater region.3
The earliest entry, dated 1923, is a pole platform tower.1,3 A log cabin is dated 1930.1,3 By 1934 the site had a 60-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab.1,3
Both lookout-history pages list the same dates, ending with the tower's destruction in 1964.1,3
Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site as "Drive-Up," but no source we read describes what remains there today or whether the site is open to visitors.3
- Huckleberry Butte Fire Lookout Tower, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/id/huckleberrybutte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Clearwater County, Forest Lookouts Idaho, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/clearwater-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Huckleberry Butte Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/huckleberry-butte/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: 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
- 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
- Clearwater County (Forest Lookouts Idaho) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Huckleberry Butte on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Huckleberry Butte Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Huckleberry Butte on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.