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Fire lookout · Custer County, Idaho

Loon Creek Point

Challis National Forest L-4 cab in the Frank Church Wilderness, built 1938, last staffed early 1970s, destroyed by the Red Bluff Fire on August 13, 2007; no source describes what remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed by the Red Bluff Fire on August 13, 2007; no source describes what remains at the site

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Hike-in site in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness per Idaho Fire Lookouts; no source describes current access or conditions

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Listed as a hike-in site; the sources describe no trail

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Type unknownL-4 cab, built 1938; sources disagree on whether it was ground-mounted or set on a log cribThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1938
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Challis National Forest (the 2007 Forest Fire Lookout Association report says Salmon-Challis National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Custer County, Idaho
Coordinates
44.78575, −114.82287
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-loon-creek-point

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. 1938 BuiltL-4 cab completed in 1938; a 1937 newspaper item shows Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees building it that August; sources disagree on mountingSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1938 and 2007
  3. 2007 BurnedDestroyed by the Red Bluff Fire on August 13, 2007; the only confirmed lookout loss to wildfire in the 2007 western reportSources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.org, idahofirelookouts.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.

Loon Creek Point was a fire lookout in the Challis National Forest, about 35 miles northwest of Challis in Custer County, Idaho.1,2 The site lies in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.1

In August 1937 Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees at a camp on Loon Creek were building the lookout, and The Post-Register noted that their spare time went to panning gold.3 Sources date the finished L-4 cab to 1938.1,2,3 Sources disagree on how it was set: Idaho Fire Lookouts calls it ground-mounted, while firelookout.com and the Forest Lookouts page say it sat on a log crib.2,1,3

Firelookout.com says full-time staffing ended in the early 1970s.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts dates the last staffing to the 1970s, and says it has no documented staffing history.2

The Red Bluff Fire overran the lookout on August 13, 2007.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's 2007 western report called it the only confirmed lookout lost to wildfire that year.4 The report names the forest as the Salmon-Challis National Forest, while the other sources say Challis.4,1,2

We found no source that describes what, if anything, remains at the site today. Idaho Fire Lookouts marks it as a hike-in site that was destroyed.2 Anyone planning a trip should check current conditions with the national forest first.

  1. Loon Creek Point Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, http://www.firelookout.com/id/looncreek.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Loon Creek Point, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/loon-creek-point/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Loon Creek Point, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/loon-creek-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Western Region Annual Report 2007, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/cr-wdep-2007.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) Gave us: name, location, status, 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
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: county, design, 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, 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.