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Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho

Jeru Peak

Kaniksu National Forest peak: a 30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab from 1934, destroyed in 1955. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1955; no source describes what remains.

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?
Unknown

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
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Bonner County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.52297, −116.67462
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-jeru-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

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. 1931 EventCamp at the siteSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1933 StaffedLeonard Lynch listed as lookout personnelSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1934 Built30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, cdil.lib.uidaho.edu
  4. No record between 1934 and 1955
  5. 1955 DestroyedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.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.

Jeru Peak sits about eight miles northeast of Coolin, in the Kaniksu National Forest, at a listed elevation of 6,371 feet.1 A camp was recorded on the site in 1931.1 In 1934 a 30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab went up.1,2 The University of Idaho's Keeping Watch page describes the L-4 as an early prefabricated cabin, 14x14, with production running until 1952.3 The only lookout the sources name is Leonard Lynch, listed as lookout personnel for 1933.1,2

The tower was destroyed in 1955.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list gives the tower as gone.4

The sources disagree on the county. One places the peak in Boundary County and the other in Bonner County.1,4 No source describes what remains on the peak today. Idaho Fire Lookouts files the old tower under hike-in sites.2

  1. Jeru Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/jerupeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Jeru Peak, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/jeru-peak/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Cabin Architecture, Keeping Watch, University of Idaho, https://cdil.lib.uidaho.edu/keeping-watch/about/cabin-architecture.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts (by Region), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id/id-rg/ (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, status, agency, 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.