FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Red Plume

Red Plume lookout in the Great Bear Wilderness: a 1928 cabin on the ground, a 15-foot replacement tower, destroyed in 1991. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1991 per firelookout.com. No source describes what remains at the site.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Inside the Great Bear Wilderness on Flathead National Forest land. No source describes access to the old site.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower15-foot treated timber tower with an L-4 cab, replacing a 1928 D-6 cupola cabin built on the groundThe designs: L-4, D-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1928
Height
15 ft (4.6 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.14963, −113.30520
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-red-plume

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. 1928 BuiltD-6 cupola cabin, built on the ground per the April 1954 account. firelookout.com dates it to 1928.Sources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1928 and 1954
  3. 1954 EventThe old cabin was declared unsafe for further occupancy, per the April 1954 account.Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1955 Replaced by a new structureThe Montana Lookouts page gives 1955 for completion of the new tower. firelookout.com gives 1957 for the 15-foot tower.Sources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1957 StaffedLeif Holgerson listed as a lookout, per firelookout.com.Source: firelookout.com
  6. 1958 StaffedKenneth Thompson listed as a lookout, per firelookout.com.Source: firelookout.com
  7. 1967 StaffedBritt Franklin was a fire lookout at Red Plume, per the oral history description.Source: scholarworks.umt.edu
  8. No record between 1967 and 1991
  9. 1991 DestroyedDestroyed 1991, per firelookout.com.Source: firelookout.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.

Red Plume is in the Great Bear Wilderness of the Flathead National Forest, about 17 miles southeast of Essex.1 Firelookout.com dates the original lookout there to 1928, a D-6 cupola cabin.1 An April 1954 newspaper account says it was built on the ground, partly because hauling and moving timbers was impractical.2 Charles Shaw, then a smokechaser, was in charge of building it.2

In late March 1954, treated timbers were air-dropped from a Johnson Flying Service DC-3.2 The April 1954 account says the new lookout would stand on a 15-foot tower.2 A September 1954 item gave the height as 10 feet.2 Firelookout.com also gives 15 feet, and says the replacement went up in 1957.1 The Montana Lookouts page says the new tower was completed in 1955.2 The sources disagree on the completion year.1,2

Elevation is listed two ways too: 7,947 feet on firelookout.com, and 7,500 feet in the 1954 account.1,2

Firelookout.com lists Leif Holgerson as a lookout there in 1957 and Kenneth Thompson in 1958.1 An oral history interview records Britt Franklin working there as a lookout in 1967.3

The April 1954 account says the old lookout had been declared unsafe for further occupancy.2 Firelookout.com says the replacement was destroyed in 1991.1

No source describes what remains at the site today.1,2 The Forest Service's Great Bear Wilderness page says rules on food storage, camping and trail conditions are posted on its separate wilderness page.4

  1. Red Plume Fire Lookout Cabin, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/redplume.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Red Plume - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Montana Lookouts (montanalookouts.weebly.com), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/red-plume.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Britt Franklin Interview, February 22, 2026, Northwest Montana Lookout Association Oral History Project (University of Montana), https://scholarworks.umt.edu/nwmt-ffla/35/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Flathead National Forest, Great Bear Wilderness, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r01/flathead/recreation/great-bear-wilderness (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: height, 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, access, 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.