Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana
Demers Ridge
Flathead NF 20-foot pole L-4 tower dated 1935, north of Columbia Falls, MT; listed destroyed in 1957. No source describes what remains at the site.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as destroyed in 1957; no source describes what, if anything, remains at the site
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 tower20-foot pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1935
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Flathead National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Flathead County, Montana
- Coordinates
- 48.64517, −114.20955
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mt-demers-ridge
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 a typical height for a lookout like it.
Downloads about 4.5 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
- 1935 BuiltDated 1935 in the firelookout.com listing; no construction account foundSource: firelookout.com
- No record between 1935 and 1957
- 1957 DestroyedListed as destroyed in 1957; the listing gives no causeSource: firelookout.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.
The Demers Ridge lookout was a 20-foot pole tower of the L-4 type.1 The listing dates it to 1935 and places it on the Flathead National Forest, about 18 miles north of Columbia Falls in Flathead County, Montana.1 Its elevation is given as 6,235 feet.1
The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list also marks the tower as gone, and gives its coordinates as 48.64517, -114.20955.2 The listing dates its destruction to 1957.1
Today, no source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site, and none says whether the site is open to visitors. A hiking route named Demers Ridge Trail is listed in Hungry Horse, Montana, with a length of 8.3 miles, but no source we read ties that trail to the lookout.3
- Demers Ridge Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/demersridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Demers Ridge Trail in Hungry Horse Montana, Travelmt.com, http://www.travelmt.com/mt_sites_4829_Demers+Ridge+Trail.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, 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
- Demers Ridge Trail in Hungry Horse Montana (Travelmt.com) (opens another site)
- FFLA Montana lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Demers Ridge 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.