FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Bungalow Mountain

Flathead NF ground lookout inside the Bob Marshall Wilderness; L-4 cab built 1930 per firelookout.com; destroyed or removed 1971; staffed through 1966 per clippings.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Firelookout.com says destroyed in 1971; the Forest Lookouts page says removed in 1971

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. Site lies inside the Bob Marshall Wilderness per firelookout.com. Public level is inferred from the wilderness designation and agency, not stated by a source. No source gives visit rules or describes the site today.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabgable-roofed L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
15 ft (4.6 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
47.78482, −113.15570
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-bungalow-mountain

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 4.0 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. 1930 BuiltFirelookout.com says the gable-roofed L-4 cab was built in 1930Source: firelookout.com
  2. 1937 StaffedA 1937 clipping names Roy Root as lookout at the Bungalo stationSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1948 FireHossack put out a timber fire alone in the south fork wilderness area, per a 1948 Montana Standard clippingSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1948 StaffedFirelookout.com and a 1948 clipping name George Hossack as lookoutSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1950 StaffedRanger Shaw took Jim Lance up to the lookout and left him for the season, per a 1950 Hungry Horse News clippingSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1957 StaffedFirelookout.com names Harvey Robe as lookoutSource: firelookout.com
  7. 1958 StaffedFirelookout.com names Thomas Eck as lookoutSource: firelookout.com
  8. 1966 StaffedA 1966 Daily Inter Lake clipping says the lookout made two reports to the Forest Service in one morningSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  9. 1971 DestroyedFirelookout.com says the cab was destroyed in 1971Source: firelookout.com
  10. 1971 RemovedThe Forest Lookouts page lists the lookout as removed in 1971Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  11. 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.

Bungalow Mountain was a fire lookout on the Flathead National Forest, and its site lies inside the Bob Marshall Wilderness.1 Firelookout.com says the site was developed with a camp in the 1920s, and that a gable-roofed L-4 cab was built there in 1930.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the lookout as a ground lookout that is gone.2

Most of the staffing record comes from old newspaper clippings that the Forest Lookouts Montana page reprints.3 In August 1937 the Daily Inter Lake reported that a lookout named Roy Root had helped a girl with a sore throat at the station, which was the nearest place a call for help could be made.3 Firelookout.com names George Hossack as lookout in 1948, Harvey Robe in 1957 and Thomas Eck in 1958.1

In August 1948 Hossack put out a timber fire by himself, after climbing six miles through brush and timber to reach it.3 In 1950 the Hungry Horse News called the lookout the most remote one in the country.3 The latest clipping on the page, from August 1966, says the lookout made two reports to the Forest Service in a single morning.3

Firelookout.com says the cab was destroyed in 1971.1 The Forest Lookouts page lists it as removed in 1971.3 Neither source says how the cab was destroyed or taken down, and the two sources use different words for the same year.

No source I read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether visitors can reach it. A 1948 clipping put the station four miles from the Continental Divide and 68 miles from any settlement.3 A 1949 clipping called it the most remote lookout in the country, and said it was the furthest from any motorized travel.3

  1. Bungalow Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/bungalow.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org), https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Bungalow Mountain, Forest Lookouts (montanalookouts.weebly.com), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/bungalow-mountain.html (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, 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, 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.