FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Ulster County, New York

Red Hill Fire Tower

The last Catskill fire tower to close, in 1990; restored by volunteers and reopened in 2000, it's now staffed weekends by the Red Hill Fire Tower Committee.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Open to the public. Volunteer-staffed weekends from Memorial Day to Columbus Day; about a 1-mile hike in.

Can you climb it?
Yes
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
About 1 mile hike to the summit
Staffing
Staffed by volunteers (as of 2017)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor steel tower, 60 ft, with a 7x7 ft steel cab and an unusual 1/2 in. tube alidadeThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1920
Height
60 ft (18.3 m)
Elevation
2,980 ft (908 m)
Agency
NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation
Land
State land
Location
Ulster County, New York
Coordinates
41.92380, −74.51790
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-red-hill

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. 1920 BuiltAermotor steel tower built by the state to close a gap in the Catskills' fire-detection networkSources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org
  2. 1931 BuiltOne-story, 14x24 ft observer's cabin addedSource: en.wikipedia.org
  3. No record between 1931 and 1990
  4. 1990 Last staffedClosed for good; the last fire tower in the Catskills to go out of service (brief earlier closures in 1971 and the early 1980s, with a return to staffing in 1987)Source: en.wikipedia.org
  5. 1995 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered with the National Historic Lookout Register March 6, 1995, nominated by Bob Spear of FFLASource: nhlr.org
  6. 2000 RestoredReopened to the public after a restoration (begun 1998) by the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development and NYS DEC, funded by state grants matched by local fundraising; NY-NJ Trail Conference volunteers built a new access trail as part of the same effortSource: en.wikipedia.org
  7. 2001 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesListed on the NRHP September 23, 2001, under the Fire Observation Stations of New York State Forest Preserve multiple-property listingSource: npgallery.nps.gov
  8. 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.

Red Hill Fire Tower

Red Hill rises to about 2,980 feet (908 m) on the southern edge of the Catskills, in the Sundown Wild Forest in Ulster County.1,2 The state put up a fire lookout tower on its summit in 1920, one of the last towers built to close a gap in the Catskills' forest-fire detection network.3 It is a 60-foot steel Aermotor tower topped by a 7-by-7-foot steel cab, fitted with an unusual half-inch tube alidade for sighting smoke.1 An observer's cabin — a one-story, 14-by-24-foot frame building — followed in 1931.3

State observers staffed Red Hill for seven decades, with short closures in 1971 and the early 1980s and a return to full-time duty in 1987 during a stretch of heavy fire activity.3 It closed for good in 1990, the last fire tower in the Catskills to go out of service.3 Afterward the tower sat idle, and because state policy barred keeping nonessential structures on Forest Preserve land, it was slated for demolition.3

A restoration campaign changed that. Worried residents of nearby Denning and Claryville asked the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development for help, and starting in 1998 the Center and the state Department of Environmental Conservation rebuilt the tower and cabin, paying for it with state grants matched by local fundraising — bake sales and a quilt raffle among them.3 Volunteers from the New York–New Jersey Trail Conference built a new access trail down the mountain's slope as part of the same effort.3 Red Hill reopened to the public in 2000, the first of the Catskills' restored fire towers to do so.3 The National Historic Lookout Register had already listed it in March 1995, nominated by FFLA representative Bob Spear;1 the tower followed onto the National Register of Historic Places on September 23, 2001, as part of the multiple-property listing for New York's state forest-preserve fire observation stations.4

Today the Red Hill Fire Tower Committee and volunteer guides staff the cab on weekends between Memorial Day and Columbus Day.1 A 2017 visit report found the tower, cabin, picnic table, privy, trail, register box and kiosk all in good condition, though it noted nearby electronic equipment encroaching on the site.1 The hike in is about a mile, to what one hiking guide calls a "fairly remote" tower.2 The tower and its grounds are state-owned, administered by the DEC.1

  1. Red Hill Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ny/red-hill-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. NYS DEC Firetowers list, andyarthur.org, https://andyarthur.org/p/138058 (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Red Hill Fire Observation Station, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hill_Fire_Observation_Station (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  4. Red Hill Fire Observation Station, National Register of Historic Places asset detail (NPGallery/NPS), https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/01001030 (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Red Hill Fire Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
9/10/05--Cabin
9/10/05--CabinPhoto: Bob Eckler (courtesy Bill Starr), via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Red Hill Fire Tower, 1924
(1924)Photo: Friends of Red Hill collection (courtesy Bill Starr), via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Red Hill Fire Tower
Photo: Laurie Rankin, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · 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, what it is built of, 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. 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. Map and Coordinates List for NYS DEC Firetowers (Andy Arthur) Gave us: ownership, links Andy Arthur, andyarthur.org (CC BY 3.0) · CC BY 3.0, credit: Andy Arthur, andyarthur.org. Facts + short description text reused under that licence. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. 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
  5. Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter (nysffla.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the chapter newsletter it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR and FFLA records (the chapter publishes none). · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: register numbers, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  7. 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.