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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Quartz Ridge Lookout

Idaho County's 100-foot steel Aermotor lookout tower, built 1934 in the Nez Perce National Forest, was gone by 1969; a 1951 survey disk is on record.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1969 per firelookout.com, Idaho Fire Lookouts and the Forest Service list.

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. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists it as drive-up on national forest land; no closure or permit is described in the sources read

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists it as drive-up. The only item on record at the site is the 1951 survey disk; whether it survives is not stated.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower100-foot steel Aermotor tower with an L-4 cab for living quarters; one source gives the model as Aermotor MC-40Cab: L-4; tower: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Nez Perce National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.85860, −115.89653 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-quartz-ridge

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 3.8 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 living quarters with a 100-foot steel Aermotor towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1936 StaffedJanuary 1936 item, quoted on Rex's page, names Al Moore on duty on top of the tower when lightning hit itSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1936 and 1951
  4. 1951 EventForest Service set a survey disk stamped QUARTZ RG 1951 in rock outcrop, per the NGS recordSource: ngs.noaa.gov
  5. 1962 Condition assessmentUSGS described the survey disk in 1962; the last condition note in the NGS record reads GOODSource: ngs.noaa.gov
  6. 1969 RemovedGone by 1969 per firelookout.com, Idaho Fire Lookouts and the Forest Service list; Rex's page says Removed without a dateSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. 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.

Quartz Ridge Lookout stood at the south end of Quartz Ridge in the Nez Perce National Forest, about 12 miles southeast of Grangeville in Idaho County.1,2,3 It was a 100-foot steel Aermotor tower with an L-4 cab for living quarters, built in 1934.1,2,4 One page gives the tower's model as Aermotor MC-40.4

A January 1936 item, quoted on a lookout history page, opens with a report that a Forest Service man had been hit by lightning and survived. It then names Al Moore as the lookout on duty when lightning hit the tower.4

Sources agree the tower was gone by 1969.1,2,5 Rex's page lists it as removed.4

A federal survey record for the site lists a disk stamped QUARTZ RG 1951, set in rock that the description places under the steel tower.3 The record's last condition note is from 1962 and rates the disk good. It does not say whether the disk can still be found.3 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as drive-up but labels the entry destroyed, without giving a cause.2 The site lies on national forest land.1

  1. Quartz Ridge Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/quartzridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Quartz Ridge Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/quartz-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. QZ0745 Quartz Ridge, National Geodetic Survey datasheet, https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=QZ0745 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Quartz Ridge - Forest Lookouts, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/quartz-ridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259204 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Quartz Ridge Lookout
Quartz Ridge LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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 1.9 km (1.2 mi).

    • FFLA: 45.85860, −115.89653
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 45.87323, −115.88403

    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: 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: 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, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.