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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Siwash Peak Lookout

L-4 cab built 1931 on Siwash Peak, 10-foot patrol tower a mile north; both destroyed 1961; a 2025 article found tie-downs, a flagpole and foundation cement.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cab and patrol tower destroyed in 1961. An August 2025 Idaho Fire Lookouts article reports tie-downs, a flagpole, a section of cement and two cement blocks from the cabin foundation.

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. On St. Joe National Forest land and listed as hike-in by Idaho Fire Lookouts. No source gives a trail, route or closure.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab on the peak; a 10-foot patrol tower about one mile north on North Siwash PeakThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.20517, −115.74210
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-siwash-peak

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. 1931 Built10-foot patrol tower built about one mile north, atop North Siwash PeakSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1931 and 1961
  3. 1961 DestroyedCab and 10-foot patrol tower destroyedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. No record between 1961 and 2025
  5. 2025 Condition assessmentIdaho Fire Lookouts article dated August 19, 2025 reports the summit looked wiped clean at first, then tie-downs, a flagpole, a cement section and two cement blocks from the cabin foundationSource: 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.

Siwash Peak Lookout stood on a summit about four miles southeast of Avery, in the St. Joe National Forest, at roughly 5,800 feet 1. In 1931 an L-4 cab went up on the peak 1,2. A 10-foot patrol tower was put up about a mile north, on North Siwash Peak 1,2.

The cab and the patrol tower were both destroyed in 1961 1,2. The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list now marks the site as gone 3.

In an August 2025 article, Idaho Fire Lookouts said the summit looked stripped bare at first 2. A closer search turned up tie-downs and a flagpole. The writers also found a lone piece of cement, probably from a corner, and two concrete blocks that had formed the cabin's base, both since knocked off the mountainside 2. Beyond those pieces, no source describes what remains on the summit today.

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in 2. Both sources place it on St. Joe National Forest land 1,2. No source describes a trail or a route up to it.

  1. Siwash Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/siwashpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Siwash Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/siwash-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Siwash Peak Lookout
Siwash Peak 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: 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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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.