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Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho

Mount Pend Oreille Lookout

Bonner County, Idaho lookout on Kaniksu NF: an L-4 cab (1930), then a 40-ft L-4 tower (1940s) that blew down in 1953; a 2023 post says ruins of both towers remain.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower blew down in 1953; an Idaho Fire Lookouts post says the ruins of both L-4 towers remain on the summit

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. Reached on foot from Lunch Peak per an Idaho Fire Lookouts post, which encourages the trip and mentions no closure or permit; no official access rule found

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Hike from Lunch Peak; the post says the trail is in great shape

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab (1930), then 40-ft pole tower with L-4 cab (1940s)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Bonner County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.41548, −116.17643
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-mount-pend-oreille

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 3.7 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. 1930 BuiltL-4 cab built, per all three sitesSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1930 and 1953
  3. 1953 DestroyedTower blew down, per all three sites; the 1940s tower is the one that fellSources: 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.

Mount Pend Oreille is in Bonner County, on the Kaniksu National Forest.1,2 Its first lookout was an L-4 cab, built in 1930.1,3,2 A 1929 newspaper item, quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, had already announced a new station on the peak at the head of Lightning Creek.2

In the 1940s a 40-foot pole tower went up on the summit, topped by an L-4 cab.1,3,2 The 1940s tower blew down in 1953.1,3,2 A Forest Fire Lookout Association list marks the site as a tower that is gone.4

An Idaho Fire Lookouts post from August 2023 says the ruins of both L-4 towers are still on the summit.3 The post says the spot where the 1940s tower came down is still plainly visible. The 1930s cab's remains lie a short way down the ridge, though they are mostly wood planks now.3

The same post praises the hike from Lunch Peak, says the trail is in great shape, and encourages anyone at Lunch Peak to make the short side trip.3 It does not mention a closure or a permit. The post dates from 2023, so check with the Kaniksu National Forest before you go.

  1. Mt. Pend Oreille Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/mtpendoreille.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Mount Pend Oreille, Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/mount-pend-oreille.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Mt Pend Oreille Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/mt-pend-oreille-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Mt Pend Oreille Lookout
Mt Pend Oreille 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: 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, 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

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