Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho
Tamarack Ridge
Clearwater National Forest 40-foot pole lookout on Tamarack Ridge, built 1933 with an L-4 cab; in ruins by 1940 and listed as gone; the Idaho site calls it drive-up.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned and in ruins by 1940; no source describes what 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?
- Yes, you can drive up
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab on the north point of the ridge; three patrol pointsThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1933
- Height
- 40 ft (12.2 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Clearwater National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Clearwater County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 46.57248, −115.60205
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-tamarack-ridge-2
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
- 1933 Built40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab on the north point of the ridgeSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
- 1940 AbandonedAbandoned and in ruins by 1940; the Forest Service list gives 'Ruins 1940'Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Clearwater National Forest lookout on Tamarack Ridge went up in 1933. It was a 40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, set on the north point of the ridge.1,2,3 Two of the sources also list three patrol points from the site.1,2 The lookout's listed elevation is 4,697 feet.2,3
The Forest Service's list was compiled in 2016 partly from the firelookout.com site, so the two are not fully independent checks on the 1933 date.3,1
The tower was abandoned by 1940 and was in ruins by then. The Forest Service's list and the Idaho lookout site both give 1940 for that change.2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list marks the tower as gone.4
Today the Idaho lookout site describes the spot as drive-up ruins.2 No source describes what remains at the site today, or whether the site is open to visitors.
- Tamarack Ridge Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/tamarackridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Tamarack Ridge Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/tamarack-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, compiled by Margaret Sand, Walde Lookout and Cindy Schacher, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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, height, status, agency, 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
- Tamarack Ridge Lookout (Idaho Fire Lookouts) (opens another site)
- Clearwater National Forest Lookouts (compiled by Margaret Sand, Walde Lookout and Cindy Schacher, June 2016) (U.S. Forest Service) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Tamarack Ridge 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.