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Fire lookout · Suffolk County, New York

Camp Upton North Tower Site

Steel Aermotor lookout built 1932 on former Camp Upton land in Suffolk County; closed 1953, removed 1955 or 1956; the Long Island list says concrete footers still remain.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower removed in 1955 or 1956; the Long Island list says concrete footers still remain at the north 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
Cab on a towerAermotor LS-40 steel tower with wood steps and landing platformsThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Steel
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
132 ft (40 m)
Agency
New York State Conservation Department
Land
Unknown
Location
Suffolk County, New York
Coordinates
40.87750, −72.86417
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-camp-upton-north

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 3.6 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. 1932 BuiltErected by the state Conservation Department (register and Long Island list); completed January 1932 per the 1932 reportSources: firetower.org, nysffla.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1932 StaffedJanuary 1932 report: a man would be kept on duty March 15 to November 15 (planned)Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1932 and 1953
  4. 1953 ClosedClosed in 1953 (register and Long Island list)Sources: firetower.org, nysffla.org
  5. 1955 RemovedRegister gives 1955 by the state Conservation Department; Long Island list gives 1955 or 56 by Brookhaven National LaboratorySources: firetower.org, nysffla.org
  6. No record between 1955 and 2009
  7. 2009 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: June 23, 2009Source: FFLOS register entry
  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.

The Camp Upton North Tower Site is in Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York, about three miles northeast of Yaphank.1 A Long Island fire tower list puts it about three and a half miles from Yaphank.2

The New York State Conservation Department erected the steel lookout in 1932.1,2 A January 1932 report said it stood on headquarters hill at Camp Upton, where the Army's cantonment offices had been during the war, and called it the fifth such tower in Suffolk County.3 A June 1931 item from the same source said the two towers then standing, at Selden and Flanders, had been found inadequate by a state ranger for the wooded country between them, where clouds often hid fires.3

The register describes an Aermotor LS-40 steel tower with wood steps and landing platforms.1 The sources disagree on its height. The Long Island list calls it a 60-foot tower, while the 1932 report says it was 70 feet high.2,3

The 1932 report said one attendant would be on watch in the tower from March 15 to November 15.3

The register says the tower was closed in 1953 and removed in 1955 by the state's Conservation Department.1 The Long Island list gives the same closing year, but says both towers were taken down in 1955 or 1956 by Brookhaven National Laboratory, then the owner of the land.2 The two accounts disagree about who took the tower down.1,2 The list also says the north site still has concrete footers.2

The land is now part of the Brookhaven National Laboratory campus.1 The laboratory's history says Camp Upton, the Army's camp, was active from 1917 to 1920 and again from 1940 to 1946, and that the laboratory was born in January 1947.4 We found no source that says whether the old tower site is open to visitors.

  1. Camp Upton North Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ny/camp-upton-north-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Long Island Fire Towers, nysffla.org, http://www.nysffla.org/towers1.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Camp Upton, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/camp-upton.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. History: Camp Upton, Brookhaven National Laboratory, https://www.bnl.gov/about/history/campupton.php (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Photo of Camp Upton North Tower Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Camp Upton North Tower Site, 1946
(1946)Photo: NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 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.