Fire lookout · Lincoln County, Montana
Bonnet Top
A 50-foot pole L-4 tower in the Kootenai National Forest near Yaak, Montana, dated 1933 and gone by 1958.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Firelookout.com marks it gone in 1958; the page does not say how it went.
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
- Type
- Cab on a towerPole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1933
- Height
- 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Kootenai National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Lincoln County, Montana
- Coordinates
- 48.97894, −115.70148
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mt-bonnet-top
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 4.6 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 Built50-foot pole L-4 tower, per firelookout.comSource: firelookout.com
- No record between 1933 and 1958
- 1958 EventMarked gone in 1958 on firelookout.com; the cause is not statedSources: firelookout.com, firelookout.org
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.
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.
Bonnet Top was a lookout tower in the Kootenai National Forest, about ten miles north of Yaak in Lincoln County, Montana.1 Firelookout.com gives its elevation as 5,544 feet.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list gives its coordinates as 48.97894, -115.70148.2 The Montana Lookouts county list places it under the Kootenai National Forest and gives a survey location of 37N-32W-13, which reads as township 37 north, range 32 west, section 13.3
Firelookout.com places a 50-foot pole L-4 tower there in 1933.1 The same page marks it gone in 1958.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list likewise shows the tower as gone.2
No source describes what, if anything, is left on the site today.1 Firelookout.com names the Kootenai National Forest for the site, so ask the forest about access before setting out.1
- Bonnet Top Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/bonnettop.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Montana Lookouts (by County), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/mt-co/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Lincoln County - Forest Lookouts, montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/lincoln-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, 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
- Montana Lookouts (by County) (Forest Fire Lookout Association) (opens another site)
- Lincoln County - Forest Lookouts (montanalookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
- FFLA Montana lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Bonnet Top on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.