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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Lolo Forks Lookout

Clearwater NF site: a 1935 L-4 cab on a log crib, now in ruins; Idaho Fire Lookouts calls the 1935 entry a camp.

Ruins: Only footings or remains are left. Ruins remain, per firelookout.com and the Forest Service list.

Visit & stay

Ruins: footings or remains only. There is no structure 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
Ruins
Type
Two-story buildingL-4 cab atop a log crib, 1935The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.38274, −115.69049 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-lolo-forks

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 4.1 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. 1935 BuiltL-4 cab atop a log crib, per firelookout.com and the Forest Service listSources: firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
  2. 1935 EventIdaho Fire Lookouts dates a 1935 entry to a camp rather than a cabSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  3. TodayRuinsOnly footings or remains are left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Lolo Forks is in the Clearwater National Forest, in Idaho County.1 Firelookout.com places it nine miles southeast of Pierce.1

Firelookout.com dates the lookout to 1935, when an L-4 cab sat atop a log crib.1 The Forest Service list gives the same year and design.2

Idaho Fire Lookouts also dates an entry to 1935, but calls it a camp.3 The two accounts disagree about what stood there.3,1

Three sources say ruins remain.3,1,2 The FFLA's Idaho list, by contrast, calls it a two-story cab and marks it gone.4

The Idaho County list places the lookout at 35N-6E-10, which matches the township, range and section in the Forest Service list.5,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site drive-up, but none of the sources says whether the public may visit the ruins.3

  1. Lolo Forks Fire Lookout Tower, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/loloforks.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Lolo Forks Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/lolo-forks-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho lookout list, FFLA, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho County (A-L) - Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/idaho-county-a-l.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the location by 2.9 km (1.8 mi).

    • FFLA: 46.38274, −115.69049
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 46.35784, −115.70049

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

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: 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, 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.