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Fire lookout · Boundary County, Idaho

Katka Peak

Boundary County, Idaho, lookout built in 1932 with an L-4 cab, retired after 1950 and toppled and burned in 1962; no source describes what remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1962; no source describes what, if anything, remains on the peak

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
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as a hike-in

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower10-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Boundary County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.63295, −116.16344
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-katka-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. 1932 Built10-foot pole tower with L-4 cab (firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts)Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1933 StaffedClarence Kauffmann listed for 1933Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1943 StaffedGeorge Koppang listed for 1943 (Bonners Ferry Herald, 26 August 1943)Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1950 AbandonedNot used or maintained since 1950, when the Forest Service turned to aerial patrolSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1962 DestroyedDestroyed in 1962; June 1962 newspaper story says the towers were being toppled and burnedSources: 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.

The Katka Peak lookout stood in Boundary County, Idaho, about eight miles southeast of Bonners Ferry, in the Kaniksu National Forest.1,2

It went up in 1932 as a 10-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab.1,3 A 1962 Sandpoint News Bulletin story, reprinted on the Forest Lookouts site, says the Civilian Conservation Corps built this lookout and five others in the 1930s.4

Clarence Kauffmann is the name listed for 1933.1,3 Idaho Fire Lookouts also lists George Koppang, citing a Bonners Ferry Herald item dated August 26, 1943.3

According to the same 1962 story, the Forest Service had not used or maintained the towers since 1950, when it turned to aerial patrol to add to its ground watch.4 Over the previous dozen years, weather and rot had made the towers risky to climb.4 The article reports that the towers were being toppled and burned by Eugene H. Napier, a district fire control officer, and Arlen Rose, a packer from Priest River.4 Both guides date the destruction to 1962.1,3

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as a hike-in and describes no remains, so we cannot say whether anything of the lookout or its footings is still on the peak.3

  1. Katka Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/katkapeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Lookout Structures list (Idaho), firelookout.org, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Katka Peak, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/katka-peak/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Katka Peak, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/katka-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Katka Peak
Katka PeakPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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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: 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.