Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho
Sheep Hill
A 1933 L-4 cab on a 30-foot tower in the Clearwater National Forest. Listed as gone; no source describes what remains at the site.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as gone. No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site.
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
- Type
- Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 30-foot towerThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1933
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Clearwater National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Idaho County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 46.18705, −115.42888
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-sheep-hill
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 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
- 1933 Built30-foot tower with an L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.
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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Sheep Hill sits at 5,676 feet in the Clearwater National Forest.1,2 Its lookout was a 30-foot tower with an L-4 cab, built in 1933.1,2 It appears on the Forest's list of its lookouts, compiled in June 2016.3 That list draws on Forest Service records and Ray Kresek's book, Fire Lookouts of the Northwest.3
The lookout listings all mark the tower as gone.1,2,3,4
No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today. The Idaho Fire Lookouts page tags the site as hike-in, and no source says whether it is open to visitors.2
Another lookout also called Sheep Hill is a different structure. It sits in the Nez Perce National Forest at 8,405 feet, is actively staffed, and was added to the National Historic Lookout Register.5
- Sheep Hill Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/sheephill294b.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Sheep Hill Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/sheep-hill-lookout-2/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, list compiled by Margaret Sand and Cindy Schacher, June 2016, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts (Alphabetical List), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Sheep Hill Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/sheep-hill-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- 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
- Sheep Hill Lookout (Idaho Fire Lookouts) (opens another site)
- Clearwater National Forest Lookouts (list compiled by Margaret Sand and Cindy Schacher, June 2016) (USDA Forest Service) (opens another site)
- Sheep Hill Lookout (Nez Perce National Forest) (Idaho Fire Lookouts) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Sheep Hill on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.