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Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Moscow Bar Lookout

Clearwater NF site at 5,274 ft: L-4 cab built 1934 (1931 per one source), abandoned in the 1940s, now gone; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in the 1940s; 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?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site 'Drive-Up Abandoned'; no source describes current access

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab, with a 20-foot L-6 tower about two miles northwest as a patrol pointThe designs: L-4, L-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.78189, −115.39837 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-moscow-bar

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 4.0 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 BuiltL-4 cab (per firelookout.com and the 2016 Clearwater list); Idaho Fire Lookouts dates the L-4 to 1931Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
  2. 1940 AbandonedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
  3. 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.

Moscow Bar Lookout stood in the Clearwater National Forest, in Clearwater County, Idaho, about 10 miles east-southeast of the Canyon Ranger Station.1 The site sits at 5,274 feet.1 The name goes back to a short placer-mining attempt by a group of Moscow, Idaho men, who soon found the work unprofitable.2

An L-4 cab went up there, but the sources disagree on the year. Firelookout.com and a 2016 Clearwater National Forest list give 1934, while Idaho Fire Lookouts gives 1931.1,3,4 A 20-foot L-6 tower stood about two miles northwest, which Idaho Fire Lookouts calls the patrol point.1,3,4

Sources agree the lookout was abandoned in the 1940s.1,3,4 We found no source that describes what remains at the site today or its current access. Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site "Drive-Up Abandoned,"3 and the Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the lookout as gone.5

  1. Moscow Bar Fire Lookout Tower, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/moscowbar.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. The Clearwater Story, Appendix B, USDA Forest Service Region 1, https://npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/1/clearwater/story/appb.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Moscow Bar Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/moscow-bar-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, Clearwater National Forest, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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 2.5 km (1.6 mi).

    • FFLA: 46.78189, −115.39837
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 46.78895, −115.42974

    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: 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. 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.