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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Mocus Point Lookout

Clearwater NF lookout in Idaho County: tree platform from 1934 or 1935, 40-foot L-4 tower by 1946 or 1949, destroyed or removed in 1973; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1973 per three sources; Forest Lookouts, citing Kresek, says removed. 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
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site as hike-in

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab, after an earlier tree platformThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.42523, −115.02281
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-mocus-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 its recorded height.

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. 1934 Built45-foot tree platform as first lookout; Hartig (source 3) dates the first manned season to 1935Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
  2. 1935 First staffedFirst lookout manned at the start of the 1935 fire season, per Hartig's 1981 history; tent camp near larch topped at 55 feetSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1941 AlteredTen feet cut off the tree top; crow's nest at 45 feet with wooden ladderSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1946 Built40-foot pole L-4 tower, per firelookout.com; Hartig dates the cab move to 1947 and construction funding to 1949Source: firelookout.com
  5. 1949 BuiltConstruction of the 40-foot tower with L-4 cab begins after funding; George Brocke and family moved to the pointSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1953 Last staffedLast manned by the Lochsa District, then dropped from the fire planSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1963 StaffedTransferred to the Powell District and activated again; still in use in 1966Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  8. 1973 DestroyedDestroyed per firelookout.com, Idaho Fire Lookouts and the Clearwater listSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
  9. 1973 RemovedForest Lookouts page, citing Kresek, says the lookout was removed; conflicts with destroyedSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  10. 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.

Mocus Point sits in the Clearwater National Forest, in Idaho County, 16 miles west-southwest of the Powell Ranger Station, at 5,579 feet.1,2 Its first lookout was a platform in a tree.1 Firelookout.com dates it to 1934,1 but Louis Hartig's 1981 history, quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, says the first lookout came at the start of the 1935 fire season, in a tent camp near a larch topped at 55 feet.3 In 1941 the top was cut down ten feet and the crow's nest set at 45 feet.3

A 40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab came later.1,3 Firelookout.com dates it to 1946,1 but Hartig's history records a surplus cab moved in during 1947 and construction funding in 1949.3

Hartig names the people who worked the point.3 A lookout man, Harry Cummings, built a 14 by 18 foot living cabin by himself, after Ranger Herb Flodberg had material salvaged in 1942 from the Boundary planting camp and an abandoned lookout.3 In 1949 George Brocke and his family moved to the point as construction got underway.3 The point was last manned by the Lochsa District in 1953.3 After it passed to the Powell District in 1963, it was active again and still in use in 1966.3

Firelookout.com, the Idaho Fire Lookouts page and the Clearwater list all say the tower was destroyed in 1973.1,2,4 The Forest Lookouts page, citing Kresek, says it was removed that year instead.3

None of the sources describes what, if anything, is left at the site today. The Idaho Fire Lookouts page tags the point as a hike-in.2

  1. Mocus Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/mocuspoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Mocus Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/mocus-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Mocus Point, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/mocus-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Mocus Point Lookout
Mocus Point LookoutPhoto: 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: 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.