Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho
Tola Point Lookout
40-foot L-4 pole tower on the Kaniksu National Forest, Bonner County, built 1934 and abandoned in the 1950s; a 2022 post found only three footings.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Idaho Fire Lookouts found three footings and nothing else at the site, in a post dated August 8, 2022.
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
- Trail
- Idaho Fire Lookouts classes the site as drive-up, but its team had to bushwhack through vegetation to find the footings.
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab; crow's-nest tree platform about 1 mile southeastThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1934
- Height
- 40 ft (12.2 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Kaniksu National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Bonner County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 48.49662, −117.01148
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-tola-point
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 4.1 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
- 1934 Built40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab; crow's-nest tree platform about 1 mile southeastSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1945 EventBlog post describes a photo from The Smokey Generation: self-portrait by Ronald Stephens taken at the lookoutSource: lookouts.posthaven.com
- 1950 AbandonedSources date abandonment to the 1950sSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1950 and 2022
- 2022 Condition assessmentIdaho Fire Lookouts post dated August 8, 2022: three footings found, nothing else at the siteSource: idahofirelookouts.com
- 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.
Tola Point is a former lookout site on the Kaniksu National Forest in Bonner County, Idaho.1,2 It sits more than 8 miles west of Coolin, at 3,826 feet.1,3
The lookout was a 40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, built in 1934.1,3,2 A crow's-nest tree platform stood about a mile southeast of the tower.1,3,2
A blog post describes a photo from The Smokey Generation as a self-portrait by Ronald Stephens, taken at the lookout in 1945.4
Sources date its abandonment to the 1950s.1,3,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list shows the tower as gone.5
In a post dated August 8, 2022, Idaho Fire Lookouts reports that growth now covers nearly all of the site.3 The team had to push through that growth to find the footings.3 The search turned up three footings and no other remains.3
Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site drive-up, but its account describes a bushwhack to reach the footings.3 No source we found says whether the site is open to visitors today.
- Tola Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/tolapoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Tola P:oint - Forest Lookouts, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/tola-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Tola Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/tola-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Tola Point ... - Lookouts, Lookouts blog, https://lookouts.posthaven.com/tola-point-dot-dot-dot (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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
- 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: design, height, 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
- 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
- Tola Point ... - Lookouts (Lookouts blog (lookouts.posthaven.com)) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Tola Point on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Tola Point Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Tola Point on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.