FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Lincoln County, Montana

Pinto Point

Kootenai NF lookout: 40' pole L-4 tower built 1934, abandoned in the 1970s, destroyed 1990; manned in 1955 and reported a lightning fire on Pink Mountain that year.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in the 1970s and destroyed in 1990 per firelookout.com; 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 tower40' pole L-4 tower built atop the northwest pointThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lincoln County, Montana
Coordinates
48.74099, −115.45045
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-pinto-point

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 4.5 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. 1934 Built40' pole L-4 tower built atop the northwest pointSource: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1955
  3. 1955 FireLightning-caused fire on Pink Mountain reported by the Pinto Mountain Lookout in September; out by September 10 per the Evergreen itemSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1955 StaffedLookout manned in August 1955 as an extra precaution; the Inter Lake said it made three lookouts in the districtSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1955 and 1990
  6. 1990 DestroyedDestroyed in 1990 per firelookout.comSource: 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.

The Pinto Point lookout was a 40-foot L-4 pole tower erected in 1934 on the northwest point, in the Kootenai National Forest.1 The site lies about 20 miles southwest of Eureka, Montana, at an elevation of 5,311 feet.1

In August 1955 the Inter Lake reported that the lookout had been manned as an extra precaution, which made three lookouts in the district.2

An Evergreen item from September 1955 says the Pinto Mountain Lookout reported a lightning-caused fire on Pink Mountain. Smoke chasers from Big Creek Cabin went to work, and the fire was out by September 10.2 The 1955 reports use different names for the lookout, calling it the Pinto Lookout and the Pinto Mountain Lookout.2

Firelookout.com says the tower was abandoned in the 1970s and destroyed in 1990.1 The Montana list also marks it as gone.3

No source we read describes what remains at the site today, or whether it can be visited. Ask the Kootenai National Forest before going.

  1. Pinto Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/pintopoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Pinto Point, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/pinto-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana Lookouts (alphabetical list), firelookout.org, 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.