Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho
Windfall Peak Lookout
Coeur d'Alene NF lookout in Shoshone County: a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, built 1934 and destroyed 1952; nothing is left, per Idaho Fire Lookouts.
- Gone
- Open to the public
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1952. A September 2025 Idaho Fire Lookouts post found nothing left, not even a cement footing.
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 Coeur d'Alene National Forest land; Idaho Fire Lookouts describes it as drive-up; no closure or permit described
- Road to the top?
- Yes, you can drive up
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower50-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1934
- Height
- 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Coeur d'Alene National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Shoshone County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 47.97872, −116.23877
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-windfall-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 its recorded height.
Downloads about 4.2 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 Built50-foot pole tower with L-4 cab on a minor northeasterly point; c.1934 in one sourceSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1934 and 1952
- 1952 DestroyedAll three sources that date it give 1952Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.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.
Windfall Peak is in Shoshone County, Idaho, on the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, about 12 miles south-southwest of Clark Fork.1 The lookout was a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, built in 1934 on a minor point to the northeast.1,2,3 The site is listed at 4,605 feet.1
Three sources give 1952 as the year the tower was destroyed.1,2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list places the site at 47.97872, -116.23877, and marks the tower as gone.4
A September 2025 post on Idaho Fire Lookouts reports that nothing of the site remains, footing included.2 There is no tower left to climb.2
The site is on National Forest land, and Idaho Fire Lookouts describes it as drive-up.1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts files the site in its Coeur d'Alene region.2
- Windfall Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/windfallpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Windfall Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/windfall-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (Idaho), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Forest Fire Lookout Association, Idaho lookout list, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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
- Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts (Forest Lookouts (Idaho)) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Windfall Peak on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Windfall Peak 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.