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Fire lookout · Kootenai County, Idaho

Initial Peak Lookout

Coeur d'Alene National Forest lookout in Kootenai County, Idaho: a 30-foot pole tower with L-4 cab built in 1934 and destroyed in 1950; drive-up site.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1950 per all four sources; a WillhiteWeb photo caption says the footing is almost covered

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
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Kootenai County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.49775, −116.50790
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-initial-peak

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 3.9 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. 1934 Built30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, willhiteweb.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1950
  3. 1950 DestroyedAll four sources give 1950Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, willhiteweb.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.

The Initial Peak lookout stood on a summit in Kootenai County, in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest.1,2 It was a 30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, built in 1934.1,3,4,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the summit's elevation as 4,060 feet.3

All four sources we read agree that the tower was destroyed in 1950.1,3,4,2

Only one source we read describes what the site looks like now, and we could not find a date for that description. A photo caption on the WillhiteWeb page says the footing is almost covered.4 The same page says that logging has opened sightlines to the south and west from the summit, and that the access road is good enough for most vehicles.4 Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site as drive-up.3 We did not find a source that says whether the site is open to the public, so check with the Forest Service before you go.

  1. Initial Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/id/initialpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Kootenai County, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/kootenai-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Initial Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/initial-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Initial Peak Lookout Site, WillhiteWeb.com, http://willhiteweb.com/idaho_lookouts/initial_peak/lookout_site_017.htm (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. 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.