Fire lookout · Idaho
Tamarack Ridge Lookout
Clearwater National Forest lookout built in 1933 as a 40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab; abandoned and in ruins by 1940; now listed as gone, a drive-up ruin site.
- Ruins
- Access unknown
- Verified
Ruins: Only footings or remains are left. Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list says 'Tower Gone'; Idaho Fire Lookouts calls the site drive-up ruins; no source describes what remains
Visit & stay
Ruins: footings or remains only. There is no structure 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
- Type unknown40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab on the north point; three patrol pointsThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1933
- Height
- 40 ft (12.2 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Clearwater National Forest (U.S. Forest Service)
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Idaho
- Coordinates
- 46.87201, −115.97122
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-tamarack-ridge
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 4.0 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 pointSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
- 1940 AbandonedAbandoned and in ruins by 1940Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
- TodayRuinsOnly footings or remains are 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.
Built in 1933, Tamarack Ridge Lookout was a 40-foot pole tower carrying an L-4 cab on the north point.1,2 The site lies in Clearwater County, Idaho, within the Clearwater National Forest, at an elevation of 4,697 feet.1,2 The records also list three patrol points.1,2
Two lists give its survey location as section 5, township 37 North, range 7 East.3,4 A 2016 Forest Service list of Clearwater lookouts, built from a regional book and agency records, gives the same 1933 and ruins dates.3
By 1940 the lookout was abandoned and in ruins.1,2,3
Today the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks the tower as gone.5 The Idaho Fire Lookouts page describes the site as drive-up ruins.1 No source describes what is left of the ruins, or whether there are any rules for visitors.
- Tamarack Ridge Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/tamarack-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Tamarack Ridge Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/tamarackridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Clearwater County - Forest Lookouts, Idaho Lookouts website, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/clearwater-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, status, 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, staffing, 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 Fire Lookout Tower (firelookout.com) (opens another site)
- Idaho Lookouts (Forest Fire Lookout Association) (opens another site)
- Clearwater National Forest Lookouts (U.S. Forest Service) (opens another site)
- Clearwater County - Forest Lookouts (Idaho Lookouts website) (opens another site)
- Tamarack Ridge Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.