FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Lincoln County, Montana

Hornet Ridge

Gone 40-ft L-4 pole tower, built about 1937, in Kootenai NF 16 mi east of Libby; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listing says the tower has since departed; no removal date is given.

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 towerL-4 pole towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1937
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Lincoln County, Montana
Coordinates
48.38048, −115.16481
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-hornet-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 its recorded height.

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. 1937 Built40-foot pole L-4 tower, built about 1937Source: firelookout.com
  2. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Hornet Ridge is a former lookout site in the Kootenai National Forest, about 16 miles east of Libby in Lincoln County, Montana.1 The site sits at an elevation of 5,452 feet.1

A 40-foot pole tower of the L-4 type went up there around 1937.1 The photograph on the lookout's page is credited to the Fire Lookout Museum.1

The lookout's page dates it from about 1937, with the end year left as a question mark, and says the tower has since departed.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association places the site in Lincoln County at latitude 48.38048 and longitude -115.16481, and lists the tower as gone.2

No source describes the site today, including what remains there or whether the public can reach it. Anyone planning a trip should check with the Kootenai National Forest first.

  1. Hornet Ridge Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/hornetridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. 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. 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.