FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Flathead/ Lake County, Montana

Sixmile

Also known as Sixmile Mountain

Flathead NF cupola-cabin lookout near Bigfork, MT; not manned in 1955; destroyed or removed by burning in 1975; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1975 per Rex's page, or removed by burning per Forest Lookouts; no source describes what remains

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
Ground-level cabcupola cabin (about 1929), preceded by a crow's nest and camp (1910)The design: Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1929
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead/ Lake County, Montana
Coordinates
47.98642, −113.84470
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-sixmile

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. 1910 EventCrow's nest and camp dated to 1910 on Rex's page; the same page's header gives a 1928 startSource: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1910 and 1929
  3. 1929 BuiltCupola cabin dated '1929+-' (about 1929)Source: firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1929 and 1955
  5. 1955 EventNot on the manning section in summer 1955; aircraft did fire detection in the area (Flathead Courier item, quoted by Forest Lookouts)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1955 and 1975
  7. 1975 BurnedRex's page says 'Destroyed 1975'; Forest Lookouts says 'Removed by burning'Sources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  8. 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.

Sixmile was a lookout on Sixmile Mountain in Flathead/Lake County, Montana, about 12 miles southeast of Bigfork, at about 7,406 feet.1,2 The Forest Lookouts listing names the Flathead National Forest as its agency.2

Rex's page dates a crow's nest and camp to 1910, and a cupola cabin to about 1929.1 The page's own header, however, gives 1928 to 1975 as the span, which does not match the 1910 entry.1

A July 28, 1955 item from the Flathead Courier, quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, says the lookout was not on the manning section that summer and that planes did fire detection in the area.2

Both pages put the end in 1975. Rex's page says the lookout was destroyed that year, and Forest Lookouts says it was removed by burning.1,2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the site as Gone.3 No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether it is open to visitors. Check with the Flathead National Forest before going to look for it.

  1. Sixmile Fire Lookout Cabin, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/sixmile.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Six Mile - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (Montana), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/six-mile.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. 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, 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.