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Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

The Nub Lookout

Clearwater NF lookout: a 1924 camp, an L-4 cab from 1935, destroyed in 1958; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1958

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
Trail
Filed as a hike-in site by Idaho Fire Lookouts; no source describes the site today

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab (1935), after a 1924 campThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1935
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.87224, −115.49128
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-the-nub

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. 1924 EventCamp, before the cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1935 BuiltL-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. No record between 1935 and 1958
  4. 1958 DestroyedCab destroyed; no cause given in the sources readSources: firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 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.

The Nub sits in the Clearwater National Forest, about five miles northeast of the Canyon Ranger Station.1 The listings give its legal location as Section 30, Township 41 North, Range 8 East.2,3 The record begins in 1924 with a camp.1,4

An L-4 cab went up in 1935, and the cab was destroyed in 1958.1,2,4,3 All four listings give both dates, and one of them attributes them to Kresek.1,2,4,3 No listing records anything at the site after 1958.1,2,4,3

Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the site's elevation as 6,924 feet, and files it as a hike-in.4 The firelookout.com page credits its photographs to the U.S. Forest Service.1

No source we read describes the site today. We cannot say what, if anything, remains there, or whether visitors can reach it.

  1. The Nub Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/thenub.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, US Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. The Nub, Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/the-nub.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. The Nub Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com), https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/the-nub-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

The Nub Lookout
The Nub 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: dates, 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: what it is built of, design, 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, 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.