FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Roots Knob Lookout

Payette NF lookout: L-4 cab on a 10-foot pole, built 1934. Sources give destruction in 1959 or removal. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Two sources say it was destroyed in 1959; a third lists it only as removed. 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?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 10-foot pole towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Payette National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.33369, −114.99002
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-roots-knob

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 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 cab on a 10-foot pole tower; firelookout.com, Idaho Fire Lookouts and the Weebly page all give 1934Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1952
  3. 1952 AbandonedPhoto caption calls it now abandoned, says the structure beneath it is badly deteriorated, and says it is to be destroyedSource: lib.uidaho.edu
  4. 1952 EventArchive photo dated 1952 shows ranger Val Simpson on the stepsSource: lib.uidaho.edu
  5. 1959 Destroyedfirelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts date destruction to 1959; the Weebly page says removed, with no dateSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.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.

Roots Knob is a lookout site in the Payette National Forest, in Idaho County.1,2 Records give it a 1934 tower: an L-4 cab on a 10-foot pole.1,3,2 The University of Idaho's photo archive titles it Root Knob Lookout, while the firelookout.com and Forest Lookouts pages use Roots Knob.4,1,2

Idaho Fire Lookouts also has a photo of the landing field at Root Ranger Station, taken from the lookout.3

A 1952 photograph in that archive shows a ranger, Val Simpson, on the lookout's steps.4 Its caption calls the lookout abandoned, says the structure beneath it is badly deteriorated, and says it was to be destroyed.4

Two sources date its destruction to 1959.1,3 The third lists it only as removed, with no date.2 The accounts differ on how it ended.

No source describes what remains at the site today, or whether it is open to visitors.

  1. Roots Knob Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/rootsknob.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Roots Knob, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/roots-knob.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Roots Knob Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/roots-knob-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Root Knob Lookout, ranger on steps, Archival Idaho Photograph Collection, University of Idaho Library, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/archivalidaho/items/archivalidaho193.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Roots Knob Lookout
Roots Knob 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.

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: 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, 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.