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Fire lookout · Kootenai County, Idaho

Jackknife Peak

Kootenai County tower on Coeur d'Alene NF: 30-ft pole tower with L-4 cab built 1931, destroyed about 1950; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed about 1950 per the sources; the Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it as Tower Gone

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
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site drive-up; no current access rule found in the sources read

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Kootenai County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.88819, −116.44454
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-jackknife-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 4.2 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. 1920 EventPole platform tower, dated only to the 1920s; the year 1920 is a placeholder for the decade and is not a sourced dateSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1931 Built30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1932 StaffedMr. Al Hafterson, per Idaho Fire Lookouts (citing Fire Lookouts of the Northwest)Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1937 StaffedMr. Mick Clumper, per Idaho Fire Lookouts (citing Smokechasers Summer by Mick Clumper)Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 1950 DestroyedAbout 1950 per firelookout.com; c.1950 per Kresek (via the Forest Lookouts page); 1950 per Idaho Fire LookoutsSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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.

Jackknife Peak is about six miles south of Lakeview, in Kootenai County on the Coeur d'Alene National Forest.1,2 The lookout site sat at 5,242 feet.1,2

Records describe a pole platform tower on the peak in the 1920s.1,3 A 30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab was built here in 1931.1,2,3

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists two known staff members: Mr. Al Hafterson in 1932 and Mr. Mick Clumper in 1937.2

Sources date the tower's loss to about 1950.1,2,3 Photos of the lookout are credited to the Fire Lookout Museum.1

No source describes what, if anything, remains of the tower or the site today. Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site drive-up.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the lookout as gone.4 Ask the Coeur d'Alene National Forest about access before you go.

  1. Jackknife Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/jackknife.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Jacknife Peak, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/jacknife-peak/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Jackknife Peak, Forest Lookouts, idaholookouts.weebly.com, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/jackknife-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Jacknife Peak
Jacknife PeakPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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, 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, height, 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, 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.