FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Forks

Also known as Forks (hallowat creek)

Flathead County, MT tower dated 1933 as a 30' pole L-4 tower; firelookout.com gives destruction in 1977; listed gone; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. firelookout.com gives 'Destroyed 1977'; the Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it as Gone with no date; no source describes what remains

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
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30' pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.59780, −114.34550
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-forks

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 4.4 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. 1933 Builtfirelookout.com dates the 30' pole L-4 tower to 1933Source: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1933 and 1951
  3. 1951 EventHungry Horse News (August 24, 1951) reports a repair trip to the building and towerSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1951 and 1973
  5. 1973 FireSeptember 1973 lightning storm caused 25 new fires; the largest was in the Forks Lookout area, per the Daily Inter LakeSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1977 Destroyedfirelookout.com: 'Destroyed 1977.'Source: firelookout.com
  7. 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.

Forks, titled Forks (Hallowat Creek) on one site, was a fire lookout in Flathead County, Montana.1,2 A Forest Lookouts page says it is about nine miles west of Big Creek and that its name reflects its location at the junction of Big Creek and Hollowat Creek.2 The page spells the creek two ways, Hallowat in its title and Hollowat in its text.2

Its design and date come from firelookout.com, which dates the lookout to 1933 and describes a 30-foot pole tower of the L-4 type.1 That page also places the lookout in Glacier National Park, 13 miles north of Whitefish.1 The Forest Lookouts page and a 1973 newspaper item put it in the Flathead National Forest instead.2

In August 1951 a Hungry Horse News item, quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, reported a recent repair visit to the lookout by "Toad" Paullin and Dispatcher Bob Jordan.2 The same item made a general remark that wind and deep snow harm towers sitting unstaffed for years.2

In September 1973 a lightning storm caused 25 new fires in the area, according to the Daily Inter Lake.2 The largest of them was in the Forks Lookout area of the Glacier View Ranger District, and only one topped an acre.2

Firelookout.com gives 1977 as the year the lookout was destroyed.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it only as gone, with no date.3

The Association still lists the site as gone.3 No source we read describes what, if anything, remains there, or whether the public can reach it.1,2,3 Anyone planning a visit should check with the Flathead National Forest first.

  1. Forks Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/forks.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Forks (Hallowat Creek), Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/forks-hallowat-creek.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (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: 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, 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

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