FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Pete Forks Lookout

L-4 tower built on Pete Forks in 1934 in the Clearwater National Forest and destroyed in 1948; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1948; no source describes 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 classes the site as drive-up; no source describes the site today or whether visitors may go there

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.38189, −115.58930
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-pete-forks

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. 1934 BuiltL-4 towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1948 DestroyedDestroyed; the sources give no causeSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
  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.

Pete Forks Lookout stood in the Clearwater National Forest, about 12 miles southeast of Pierce in Idaho County, at an elevation of 5,578 feet.1,2 An L-4 tower went up on the site in 1934.1,2

The Forest Service list places the tower in Section 9, Township 35 North.3 The list draws on Ray Kresek's book, Fire Lookouts of the Northwest, and on Forest Service records.3 The tower was destroyed in 1948, a date all three sources give.1,2,3

Idaho Fire Lookouts classes the site as drive-up.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's regional register classes the structure as a tower, gives its coordinates as 46.38189 north and 115.58930 west, and marks it as gone.4 No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether visitors may go there.

  1. Pete Forks Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/peteforks.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Pete Forks Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/pete-forks-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, US Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts (by Region), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id/id-rg/ (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. 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.