FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Passaic County, New Jersey

Bearfort Fire Tower

Also known as Bearfort (cedar pond)

New Jersey's long-watched Bearfort Mountain fire tower, rebuilt as a 68-foot steel tower in 1934 after the prior wooden tower burned in 1932.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. on the Newark watershed property in a heavily used recreation/hiking area; active NJ Forest Fire Service lookout, not open for public climbing

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
road up the mountain usable for most cars per a 1920s-era account; also reached by hiking trails
Staffing
Staffed during fire season (as of NHLR observer reports describe an active, staffed tower)

Facts

Status
Standing sources disagree
Type
Cab on a tower68-foot steel tower, McClintock-Marshall design, possibly supplied by AermotorThe designs: Aermotor, McClintic-Marshall
Built of
Wood
Built
1934
Height
69 ft (21.0 m)
Elevation
1,331 ft (406 m)
Agency
New Jersey Forest Fire Service
Land
State land
Location
Passaic County, New Jersey
Coordinates
41.10423, −74.41740
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-nj-bearfort

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 3.4 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. 1913 First staffedwatcher stationed with telephone line and watch house added under Weeks Law agreement with City of NewarkSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1913 and 1932
  3. 1932 Burnedprior wooden tower burned down after a stovepipe spark caught the roof; warden Charles Stalter on dutySource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1934 Builtcurrent 68-foot steel McClintock-Marshall tower builtSource: nhlr.org
  5. No record between 1934 and 1997
  6. 1997 Added to the National Historic Lookout Registerregistered on the National Historic Lookout Register, December 15, 1997Source: nhlr.org
  7. 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.

Bearfort Mountain has carried a fire watch for longer than almost any other spot in New Jersey. A watcher was already stationed on a tower there in 1913, when the Weeks Law brought telephone lines and a proper watch house to the site through an agreement with the City of Newark, which owned the surrounding watershed land.1 Sources differ on exactly how old that first tower was: the National Historic Lookout Register traces the site back to a wooden platform around 1880 and an iron-frame tower built in 1909, while a 1923 newspaper account instead describes a forty-foot frame tower built for the Forest Fire Service in 1916.2,1

Whatever stood there before, it didn't last. A contemporary news account reports that the earlier Bearfort tower was destroyed by fire in April 1932, after stovepipe sparks ignited a hole in the lookout box's tar-paper roofing; Charles Stalter of Hewitt, the fire warden on duty that day, learned of the blaze only after he had already left the mountain.1 For two years afterward, observers worked from a makeshift tree platform, until the 68-foot steel tower standing today went up in 1934, a McClintock-Marshall structure that may have been supplied under an Aermotor contract.2 That steel tower remains the New Jersey Forest Fire Service's active lookout for the area.2,3

Bearfort was added to the National Historic Lookout Register in December 1997.2 Observer reports filed with the register describe an active, staffed tower, though one visit noted the cab itself needed cleaning and repainting and its instruments were in poor condition.2

The tower still stands and continues in service as a working fire-watch structure for the state forest fire service, not a public rental.2 It sits in a well-used recreation area on the Newark watershed property, with hiking trails leading past it, but the cab is reserved for Forest Fire Service lookouts and is not open for public climbing.2

  1. Bearfort (Cedar Pond), Eastern US Fire Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/bearfort.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Bearfort Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/nj/bearfort-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. 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). ↩

Photos

Photo of Bearfort Fire Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
November 2013
November 2013 (2013)Photo: Jan Braidech, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of previous wooden tower in 1925
Photo of previous wooden tower in 1925 (1925)Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Bearfort Fire Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Fire finder
Fire finderPhoto: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
View from tower
View from towerPhoto: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Bearfort Station
Bearfort StationPhoto: Wikimedia Commons, via Wikipedia · See Wikimedia Commons file page (varies per photo) · source
Photo of Bearfort 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.

Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on whether it still stands.

    • NHLR: Standing
    • Wikipedia: List of New Jersey Forest Fire Service fire towers: Standing
    • OpenStreetMap: Standing
    • FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com): Gone

    NHLR lists lookouts that were standing when registered.

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, height, status, agency, access, staffing, visiting details, 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.