FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Lincoln County, Montana

Redtop Mountain

A 30-foot pole L-4 tower and log cabin built in 1934 in the Kootenai National Forest; destroyed in 1958, and no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1958; 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 tower30-foot pole L-4 tower with a log cabin for living quartersThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Lincoln County, Montana
Coordinates
48.75119, −115.98245
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-redtop-mountain

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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.8 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 Built30-foot pole L-4 tower with a log cabin; built togetherSource: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1958
  3. 1958 DestroyedDestroyed, per firelookout.comSource: firelookout.com
  4. 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.

Redtop Mountain lies in the Kootenai National Forest, about 12 miles west-southwest of Yaak in Lincoln County, Montana. The page gives its elevation as 6,226 feet.1

The lookout was a 30-foot pole L-4 tower with a log cabin for living quarters. The tower and cabin were both built in 1934.1

The page headlines the site as R.I.P. 1934-1958, and says the lookout was destroyed in 1958.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list of Montana lookouts also marks the Redtop Mountain tower as gone.2

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the mountain today, or whether the summit is open to visitors. Ask the Kootenai National Forest about access before planning a trip.

  1. Redtop Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/redtop334.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, 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.