FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho

Moose Mountain Lookout

Bonner County, ID lookout on the Kaniksu National Forest: L-4 cab on a 10-foot log crib built 1931, destroyed in the 1950s; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in the 1950s per all three site pages; the sources give only the decade and describe no 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
Listed as a hike-in site (Idaho Fire Lookouts); no current trail or access rule found

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Two-story buildingL-4 cab atop a 10-foot log cribThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1931
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Bonner County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.34635, −116.12346
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-moose-mountain

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 3.9 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 BuiltL-4 cab atop a 10-foot log crib, per all three sitesSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1931 and 1950
  3. 1950 DestroyedThe sites give only 'Destroyed 1950s' or '1950's'; 1950 is the start of that decade, not a dated recordSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.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.

Moose Mountain is in Bonner County, Idaho, within the Kaniksu National Forest.1,2 The lookout went up in 1931 as an L-4 cab set on a ten-foot log crib.1,3,2 The Forest Lookouts page credits that build date to a source it names only as Kresek.2 Its survey location is given as 58N-3E-30.2

One site gives the elevation as 6,543 feet.3 Idaho Fire Lookouts files the lookout under its Northern Idaho pages and describes it as a hike-in site, meaning visitors walk in rather than drive up.3

The three sites agree that the cab was destroyed in the 1950s, though none gives a year more exact than the decade.1,3,2

None of the sources we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether the ground is open to visitors.1,3,2

  1. Moose Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, Fire Lookout, https://www.firelookout.com/id/moosemtn234.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Moose Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/moose-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Moose Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/moose-mountain-lookout/ (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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: what it is built of, 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, 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.