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Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Kah

Also known as Kah Mountain

Flathead County, MT log cupola cabin (1927), then 20-foot L-4 tower (1930); FireLookout.com says destroyed 1968, but a June 1968 report describes only damage.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. FireLookout.com says destroyed in 1968; a June 1968 newspaper report describes grizzly damage to the station, not its loss. No source describes the site today.

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 tower20-foot L-4 tower, after a 1927 log cupola cabinThe designs: L-4, Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1927
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
47.99223, −113.66087
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-kah

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 3.9 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. 1919 FireFire on Kah Mountain listed at 2,500 in a Forest Service list of fires; the source gives no unit and does not tie it to the lookoutSource: fs.usda.gov
  2. 1927 BuiltLog cupola cabinSource: firelookout.com
  3. 1930 Built20-foot L-4 towerSource: firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1930 and 1957
  5. 1957 StaffedPhillip Brownrigg listed as lookout personnelSource: firelookout.com
  6. 1958 StaffedArthur Warner listed as lookout personnelSource: firelookout.com
  7. 1966 StaffedKah Mountain listed among 21 lookouts occupied on the Flathead National Forest during the fire seasonSource: fs.usda.gov
  8. 1968 DestroyedFireLookout.com gives 1968 and no cause; the June 1968 report describes damage only, not lossSource: firelookout.com
  9. 1968 EventGrizzly bear caused about $400 in damage to the lookout station; report dated June 15, 1968Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  10. 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.

Kah Mountain is in Flathead County, about eight miles northwest of Spotted Bear Ranger Station, in the Flathead National Forest.1,2 The lookout began in 1927 as a log cupola cabin, and a 20-foot L-4 tower was built in 1930.1 A Forest Service list of fires gives a 1919 fire on Kah Mountain with the figure 2,500.3

FireLookout.com names Phillip Brownrigg as lookout personnel in 1957 and Arthur Warner in 1958.1 The 1966 Forest Service list of occupied lookouts includes Kah Mountain.3

In June 1968 a grizzly bear caused about $400 in damage to the lookout station.2 A report in the Semi-Weekly Spokesman-Review, quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, says the bear ripped the door off, broke window panes, and pulled out the control panel. The report says district staff discovered the damage on a check of the lookout reached up the South Fork of the Flathead River.2

FireLookout.com says the lookout was destroyed in 1968 and does not say how.1 The June report describes damage to the station and says nothing about its loss.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list also marks Kah as gone.4

No source I read describes what remains at the site today, or whether the public can reach it.1,2,4

  1. Kah Fire Lookout Tower, FireLookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/kah.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Kah Mountain, Forest Lookouts (montanalookouts.weebly.com), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/kah.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Trails of the Past: Historical Overview of the Flathead National Forest, Montana, 1800-1960, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/nfs/files/r01/flathead/publication/trails-past.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. 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, staffing, 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.