FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Lake County, Montana

Big Arm (Jette)

Also known as Jette Lake (Big Arm)

A pole lookout on the Flathead Indian Reservation near Jette Lake, dated 1935 or 1936 by sources that disagree; manned into 1960 and gone by 1969.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. firelookout.com gives Gone 1969; Forest Lookouts marks it Removed; the Forest Fire Lookout Association list reads Tower Gone.

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-ft pole L-4 tower per firelookout.com; 1936 newspaper plans give four tamarack poles about 40 ft high, with the station on a platformThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Indian Service, Flathead Indian Agency
Land
Unknown
Location
Lake County, Montana
Coordinates
47.77373, −114.26887
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-big-arm-jette

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 4.3 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. 1935 Builtfirelookout.com's date for a 50-foot pole L-4 tower. Newspaper items quoted by Forest Lookouts place road and tower work in 1936.Source: firelookout.com
  2. 1936 EventNewspaper items quoted by Forest Lookouts: a crew began a right of way for a road about five miles long; the Indian Service received the new tower in October; work stopped in December until spring. Plans called for four tamarack poles about 40 ft high.Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1936 and 1957
  4. 1957 EventFire weather readings began at the lookout (October 1957 item). The item does not name an observer.Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1959 FireA Daily Inter Lake item reports three brush and grass fires near Polson, at the lookout and at Rocky Point (August 1959).Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1960 StaffedManned by Bill Dergelo that summer; closed for the year in September after late-summer rain lowered burning indexes (Flathead Courier).Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1969 Removedfirelookout.com: Gone 1969. No cause or method given.Source: firelookout.com
  8. 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.

Big Arm Lookout, also known as Jette Lake Lookout, stood on a hilltop about eight miles northwest of Polson, on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Lake County, Montana.1,2 Sources disagree on when it went up.1,2 Firelookout.com dates the tower to 1935 and describes a 50-foot pole L-4 tower.1 Newspaper items quoted by the Forest Lookouts site place the work in 1936.2 That fall a crew began cutting a right of way for a road about five miles long to a peak above Jette Lake, and the Indian Service received the new tower from the forestry service in October.2 The plan called for a station on a platform atop four tamarack poles, about 40 feet high.2 The station came packed in four-foot lengths of matched weight, ready to load onto burros.2 Work stopped for the winter in December, to resume the next spring.2

The lookout began taking fire weather readings in October 1957.2 In August 1959 a Daily Inter Lake item reported three brush and grass fires near Polson, at the lookout and at Rocky Point.2 The next summer Bill Dergelo manned the station, which the Flathead Courier said was a key part of spotting fires on the reservation.2 It was closed for the year in September 1960, after late-summer rain brought the burning indexes down.2

Firelookout.com gives 1969 as the year the tower was gone, without saying how it came down.1 Forest Lookouts marks the entry "Removed," and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list reads "Tower Gone."2,3

No source describes what, if anything, still stands on the hilltop, and none says whether the site is open to visitors.1,2,3 A 1956 federal survey note gave road directions to the lookout tower and said the tower's proper name is now Jette Lake Lookout Tower.2 Because the hill lies within the Flathead Indian Reservation, anyone planning a visit should confirm access before going.1

  1. Big Arm (Jette) Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/mt/bigarm.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Jette (Big Arm) - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/jette-big-arm.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana fire lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height, 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, staffing, 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.