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Fire lookout · Powder River County, Montana

Diamond Butte Lookout

A cabin moved from Yager Butte in 1958 and rebuilt as an R-6 flat cab on Diamond Butte in 1970, staffed until 2001 and now an off-season Forest Service rental.

Visit & stay

You can rent this lookout for overnight stays through recreation.gov.

Sleeps
Up to 4 people
Getting there
The lookout is accessible by car, but it is a 200-foot walk up a steep hill to the lookout from the parking area.

Rules

  • Pack out all trash

Overview Diamond Butte Lookout is perched atop a 30-foot masonry tower on Diamond Butte at an altitude of 4,245 feet in the Custer National Forest approximately 40 miles from Ashland, Montana. The lookout was moved from its original location of Yeager Butte in 1958 and was an active fire lookout until 2001. Guests can enjoy panoramic views of the surrounding mountains. This vantage point offers the chance to enjoy sunrises, sunsets and star gazing on clear nights. The lookout is accessible by car, but it is a 200-foot walk up a steep hill to the lookout from the parking area. Guests should be prepared to bring most of their own supplies and gear. Recreation You can enjoy hiking, horseback riding and mountain biking near the lookout. Opportunities are available to enjoy off-road vehicle riding and hunting. Facilities The lookout can accommodate 4 people and is furnished with a table, chairs and1 twin bed with mattress, a double futon with mattress and a cot. Propane appliances include a cook stove with an oven, lights and a heater. A few cooking and eating utensils are provided, along with a broom, mop and bucket. Parking and an outhouse with a pit toilet are located at the gate 200 feet below the lookout. A wagon is stored in the lookout's basement to help haul gear. Water and electricity are not available. Guests must bring their own water for drinking, cooking and washing. Items such as bedding, lanterns or flashlights, matches, extra toilet paper, first aid supplies, trash bags, dish soap, towels and an ice chest are not available. Guests are expected to pack out their trash and clean the cabin before leaving. Natural Features The lookout offers expansive views of the nearby hills and the distant Bighorn Mountains, which are about 100 miles away. Vegetation is sparse, but sagebrush and lupin thrive on the surrounding landscape. Wildlife in the area includes fox, black bear, antelope and a variety of bird species ( bear safety ).

Book on recreation.gov

Rental details from recreation.gov, checked 19 Oct 2026. Rules, fees and seasons change, so confirm on the booking page before you go. Data source: ridb.recreation.gov

Access

Open to the public. Reachable by car plus a short, steep 200-foot walk; rented through Recreation.gov, off-season only

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
200-foot walk up a steep hill from the parking area
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Two-story buildingR-6 flat cab on a 10-foot concrete baseThe design: R-6
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1970
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
4,291 ft (1,308 m)
Agency
Custer Gallatin National Forest / Bureau of Land Management
Land
Federal land
Location
Powder River County, Montana
Coordinates
45.24915, −105.93276
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 19 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-diamond-butte

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

Downloads about 4.1 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. 1958 MovedCabin moved from Yager (Yeager) Butte to the current siteSources: nhlr.org, recreation.gov
  2. 1970 BuiltPresent R-6 flat cab on 10-ft concrete base builtSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  3. No record between 1970 and 2001
  4. 2001 Last staffedActive fire lookout use until 2001 per Recreation.govSource: recreation.gov
  5. No record between 2001 and 2022
  6. 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout Register, April 12, 2022, as US 1529Source: nhlr.org
  7. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Diamond Butte Lookout started out somewhere else. The cab now standing on the butte began as a cabin on Yager (also spelled Yeager) Butte, and in 1958 it was moved to its present site on Diamond Butte in the Custer National Forest, in what is now jointly managed by the Custer Gallatin National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management.1,2 The structure people visit today, though, is newer than that move: the current building dates only to 1970, an R-6-style flat-roofed cab sitting on a concrete pedestal about ten feet tall.1,3

The lookout sits at about 4,245 feet, a modest elevation for the Custer Gallatin but enough to command wide views over sparse, sage-covered hills toward the distant Bighorn Mountains, roughly 100 miles away.2 It served as a working fire lookout, staffed to watch for smoke in the dry Powder River country, until 2001.2 Records available do not say when fire-watch duty there first began, only that the current cab dates to 1970 and the site's use as a lookout continued for three more decades after that.

After its active fire-spotting years ended, Diamond Butte was kept standing rather than torn down or left to decay, and it eventually joined the Forest Service's recreation rental program.1,3 It was listed on the National Historic Lookout Register in 2022 as US 1529.1

Today the lookout is reachable by a long drive from Ashland, Montana, followed by a short, steep 200-foot walk up from the parking area to the cab itself.2 It can be rented off-season, sleeping up to four people, with a propane stove, heater and lights but no running water or electricity; guests haul their own gear up in a wagon kept in the lookout's basement.1,2 Because it is an active rental on a working forest road system, visitors should book through the recreation booking system rather than show up and climb it unannounced.

  1. Diamond Butte Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mt/diamond-butte-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Diamond Butte Lookout, Recreation.gov / Custer Gallatin National Forest, https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/234358 (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Diamond Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/diamondpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Diamond Butte Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Diamond Butte L.O.
Diamond Butte L.OPhoto: Gary Weber and Luke Channer, via firelookout.com · source
Diamond Butte in 2016
Diamond Butte in 2016 (2016)Photo: Gary Weber and Luke Channer, via firelookout.com · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. Recreation Information Database (recreation.gov) Gave us: ownership, access, rental details, links Data source: ridb.recreation.gov · Public data from the US government · retrieved 19 Oct 2026
  4. Forest Fire Lookout Association: lookout rentals Gave us: rental details, links Forest Fire Lookout Association rentals list (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only (state, name, booking link, manager, closure note), no prose copied. The FFLA says it is not involved in managing any rental program. · retrieved 19 Oct 2026
  5. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: what it is built of, design, height, photos, 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
  6. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  7. 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.