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Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho

Rapid Lightning Lookout

Cupola cabin (1923) and slab-frame cabin (1939) on a Bonner County summit, both destroyed in a 1967 forest fire; no remnants found.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Both cabins destroyed in a 1967 forest fire; one site visitor found no remnants on the summit

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabcupola cabin (1923) and slab-frame cabin (1939)The design: Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1923
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Bonner County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.37834, −116.22665
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-rapid-lightning

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. 1923 BuiltCupola cabin, the original lookoutSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1927 EventFire warden's report: two horses and saddles furnished to pack to the lookoutSources: idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1939 BuiltSlab-frame (frame) cabinSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1939 and 1967
  5. 1967 DestroyedBoth cabins destroyed in a forest fire; the sources do not name the fireSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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.

Rapid Lightning was a lookout on a summit in Bonner County, 17 miles northeast of Sandpoint.1,2 A cupola cabin went up there in 1923, and a slab-frame cabin followed in 1939.1,3,4

Idaho Fire Lookouts has no documented staffing history for the site.3 A fire warden's report dated January 18, 1927, quoted by the Northern Idaho News, says two horses and saddles were supplied for packing loads up to the lookout.3,4

In 1967 a forest fire destroyed both cabins.1,3,4 None of the sources names the fire.

The author of a lookout-site page on WillhiteWeb.com searched the summit and found no remnants.2 The writer found the summit wide, flat and heavily overgrown, which made searching it hard. The roads on the south side that lead toward the summit have been deliberately covered with trees, which also makes them hard to travel.2 No source says whether the site is open to visitors today.

  1. Rapid Lightning Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/rapidlightning.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Rapid Lightning Lookout Site, WillhiteWeb.com, https://willhiteweb.com/idaho_lookouts/rapid_lightning/pictures_050.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Rapid Lightning Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/rapid-lightning-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Rapid Lightning, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/rapid-lightning.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Rapid Lightning Lookout
Rapid Lightning 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: dates, 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: 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, 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.