FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

White Pine Ridge

Sanders County, MT L-4 cab on a ten-foot tower from 1934 on the Kootenai NF; destroyed 1955; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The cab was destroyed in 1955; no source describes what, if anything, remains at the site

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 cabL-4 cab on a ten-foot towerThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
47.77177, −115.56213
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-white-pine-ridge

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 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. 1934 BuiltL-4 cab on a ten-foot towerSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1936 EventNewspaper item places W. L. Mohl at the lookout in August 1936, when two women went up to visit himSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1939 EventSevere windstorm with a July 13 lightning storm; one anemometer cup blown off, instrument still read over 45 mphSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1939 and 1955
  5. 1955 DestroyedCab destroyed; the Forest Lookouts page also lists the site as removedSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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.

White Pine Ridge was a fire lookout on the Kootenai National Forest in Sanders County, Montana.1,2 It went up in 1934 as an L-4 cab on a ten-foot tower.1,2 The Sanders County Ledger describes the L-4 design in general: by a wide margin the favorite live-in lookout, a 14-by-14-foot frame cab with windows on every side.3

In August 1936 the Sanders County Independent-Ledger reported that Della Barrett and Irene Mohl went up to the Whitepine lookout to visit Irene Mohl's father, W. L. Mohl.2 In July 1939 a severe windstorm came with a lightning storm.2 The wind took one cup off the lookout's anemometer, yet the instrument still read above 45 miles an hour, and many trees and snags were blown across trails and roads.2

The cab was destroyed in 1955.1,2 The Forest Lookouts page also lists the site as removed.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks the ground site as gone.4

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether the public can reach it.

  1. White Pine Ridge Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/whitepineridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. White Pine Ridge - Forest Lookouts, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/white-pine-ridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Remember When?, Sanders County Ledger, https://www.scledger.net/story/2021/08/19/communities/remember-when/6635.html (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: what it is built of, design, 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, 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.