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Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Firefighter Lookout

Also known as Firefighter Mountain

A 41-ft timber L-4 lookout built in 1953 on Firefighter Mountain above Hungry Horse Reservoir, replacing a 1923 cabin site; still active and staffed in summer.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. Reached by Forest Service road 38B. A gate on the road is open to vehicles after July 1. No source says whether the cab is open to visitors.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
About four miles up Forest Service road 38B to the lookout, described by one guide as a steady climb on a well-maintained road.
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 41-ft timber tower (1953); hip roof later replaced by a flat roofThe designs: L-4, Cupola house, R-6
Built of
Wood
Height
41 ft (12.5 m)
Elevation
5,676 ft (1,730 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.33292, −113.87794
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-firefighter

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 4.0 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. 1923 BuiltOriginal 12x12-ft frame cabin on the siteSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1923 EventThe original D-6 cupola lookout (12x12 cabin) was built on the mountain's southeast ridge, a different spot from today's tower; it burned between 1948 and 1952.Source: nwmt-ffla.org
  3. 1924 AlteredCupola added to the 1923 cabin the year after it was establishedSource: firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1924 and 1952
  5. 1952 EventBureau of Reclamation contract let for the replacement tower, house and 3.85-mile roadSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1953 Built41-ft L-4 tower built about 1.5 miles northwest of the original cabinSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1953 Replaced by a new structureReplaced the earlier log cabin cupola lookoutSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  8. 1957 StaffedOne known lookout listed on firelookout.com for 1957Source: firelookout.com
  9. No record between 1957 and 2011
  10. 2011 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered September 24, 2011 as US 926, MT 54Source: nhlr.org
  11. 2012 RestoredBrought back into shape by volunteers.Source: firelookout.org
  12. 2012 StaffedOne of the first three lookouts in the Flathead's volunteer lookout program, with Baptiste and Cyclone.Source: nwmt-ffla.org
  13. 2014 AlteredNMLA bought an 8-ft picnic table for visitors.Source: nwmt-ffla.org
  14. 2016 RestoredThree days of scraping and two coats of paint on the cab, catwalk and stair railings; tower oiled, brass threshold polished.Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  15. 2018 RestoredKalispell Daybreak Rotary volunteers scraped and painted the cab, catwalk and stair railings.Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  16. Date unknown Last staffedPaid Forest Service staffing ended about 1997 or 1998.Source: nwmt-ffla.org
  17. 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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Firefighter Lookout stands on Firefighter Mountain in Flathead County, Montana, about nine miles southeast of Hungry Horse.1 The present tower is a 41-foot timber structure with an L-4 cab, built in 1953.2,1,3

The site was first established in 1923 with a 12-by-12-foot frame cabin, and a cupola was added the year after.1 The 1953 tower stands about a mile and a half northwest of that cabin.1 The NHLR says it replaced a log cabin cupola lookout.1,2

A 1952 newspaper item describes the new tower as a replacement for the Forest Service's lookout, made necessary by the new reservoir.3 The Bureau of Reclamation handled the contracts.3 Valley Construction Co. of St. Ignatius was awarded the July 1952 contract, $34,840 for the tower, the house and 3.85 miles of access road.3

Reports disagree on who built it. An April 1952 item says Columbia Falls Lumber Company got a $3,217 contract for the tower.3 An August 1953 report says the Valley Construction contract also covered erecting the tower and house.3

Firelookout.com reports summer staffing, and its list of known staff has a single entry, for 1957.1 The sources I checked describe no fires at the site.

The NHLR says the hip roof was later replaced with a flat roof that has a three-foot overhang.2 Firelookout.com says a flat roof was added in later years.1

A Flathead hiking guide calls it an active fire lookout, reached by Forest Service road 38B, a four-mile climb up a wooded ridge.4 Vehicles can pass a gate on that road after July 1.4

No rental listing turned up for Firefighter, and none of the sources says whether the cab is open to visitors. Check with the Flathead National Forest before going up.

  1. Firefighter Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/firefightermtn.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Firefighter Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mt/firefighter-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Firefighter Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Montana), compiling 1951 to 1953 Hungry Horse News and other newspaper items, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/firefighter-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Flathead National Forest Hikes, Moss Mountain Inn, https://www.mossmountaininn.com/articles/FlatheadNationalForestHikes.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Firefighter Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Firefighter Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Lookout interior
Lookout interiorPhoto: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Firefighter Mtn. L.O.
Firefighter Mtn. L.OPhoto: Jim Davis, 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.

Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the year it was built.

    • NHLR: 1953
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1923
    • Northwest Montana Lookout Association: 1953

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, 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. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: design, 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
  4. Northwest Montana Lookout Association Gave us: dates, links Northwest Montana Lookout Association (nwmt-ffla.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, dimensions, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the NMLA page or PDF it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR and FFLA records (NMLA publishes none). · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  7. 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
  8. 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.