FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Burlington County, New Jersey

Bass River Fire Tower

CCC steel tower raised in 1937 in eleven days, deep in the NJ Pine Barrens, still clearing its own sightlines as of 2018.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower80-foot steel tower, 7'x7' metal cab, McClintock-Marshall style with an Aermotor Co. nameplateThe designs: Aermotor, McClintic-Marshall
Built of
Steel
Built
1937
Height
79 ft (24.0 m)
Elevation
47 ft (14 m)
Agency
New Jersey Forest Fire Service
Land
State land
Location
Burlington County, New Jersey
Coordinates
39.61157, −74.43662
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-nj-bass-river

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

Downloads about 3.5 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. 1937 BuiltBuilt by the Civilian Conservation Corps, reportedly in 11 daysSource: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1937 and 1997
  3. 1997 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout Register as US 243, NJ 5, December 15, 1997Sources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org
  4. No record between 1997 and 2018
  5. 2018 AlteredNJ Forest Fire Service sought Pinelands Commission approval to clear ~16 acres of pine obstructing the tower's viewSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  6. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Bass River Fire Tower stands in Bass River State Forest, just off the Garden State Parkway in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The Civilian Conservation Corps built it in 1937, and local accounts say the crew put it up in just eleven days.1 The steel structure rises 80 feet to a 7-by-7-foot cab; the frame is of McClintock-Marshall manufacture, though the cab itself carries an Aermotor Company nameplate.1 The New Jersey Forest Fire Service has owned and run it ever since, as part of the state's network of fire lookouts watching over the Pinelands' flammable pine and oak woods.

The tower was entered on the National Historic Lookout Register on December 15, 1997, as US 243 / NJ 5.1,2 As of that listing it was still "in active service."1

The forest around the tower has needed tending to keep that service useful. In 2018, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service applied to the Pinelands Commission to clear about 16 acres of white pine and loblolly pine that had grown up and were blocking the view from the cab, replacing them with shorter-growing trees.3 Bass River Township's mayor at the time, Deborah Buzby-Cope, said the commission's executive director was recommending approval.3 The episode is a reminder of what keeps a fire tower working: not just the steel and the cab, but someone willing to keep the sightlines open.

Little else about the tower's staffing history, or its current public access, could be confirmed in this pass; both remain open questions for a future look. The tower is state property within Bass River State Forest, and visitors should treat the cab itself as off-limits unless the Forest Fire Service says otherwise.

  1. Bass River Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/nj/bass-river-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. List of New Jersey Forest Fire Service fire towers, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Jersey_Forest_Fire_Service_fire_towers (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Bass River, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/bass-river.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Bass River Fire Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Bass River Station
Bass River StationPhoto: Wikimedia Commons, via Wikipedia · See Wikimedia Commons file page (varies per photo) · source
Photo of Bass River Fire Tower
Photo: Zeete, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, what it is built of, status, register numbers, agency, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Wikipedia: List of New Jersey Forest Fire Service fire towers Gave us: height, ownership, photos, links Wikipedia (NJFFS fire tower list) · CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikipedia). Facts only (register numbers, elevation, height, division, coordinates); article prose/notes not reproduced. Photos are Wikimedia Commons files, each with its own licence on its file page. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: links easternuslookouts.weebly.com · No licence stated; facts only (county, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, status, height, design hints, register links). The site's own historical quotes, newspaper citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  4. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  5. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  6. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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.