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Fire lookout · Sullivan County, New York

Roosa Gap Firetower

35-ft Aermotor tower in Roosa Gap State Forest, Sullivan County NY; built 1948, observers to 1971, still closed per the April 2026 FFLA newsletter.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. The April 2026 FFLA newsletter says the tower continues to be closed; the FFLA New York chapter page says towers are closed pending inspections. The newsletter also notes that online reports still show visitors. A 2023 blog post called it officially open.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
The state forest has one marked hiking trail and a parking area at the end of Plank Road (Fire Tower Road). A 2023 blog describes a gravel road walk up from the end of the paved section.
Staffing
Not staffed (as of 1971)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor LS-40, 35-foot steel tower with a 7-by-7-foot cabThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1948
Height
35 ft (10.7 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
NYSDEC, Roosa Gap State Forest
Land
State land
Location
Sullivan County, New York
Coordinates
41.61761, −74.42673
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-roosa-gap

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. 1948 BuiltAermotor tower erected on land a private owner allowed the state to use, with an observer's cabin; began operations in 1948Sources: nysffla.org, scenesfromthetrail.com
  2. No record between 1948 and 1971
  3. 1971 Last staffedTen observers served through the 1971 season (April 2026 newsletter)Source: nysffla.org
  4. 1972 Closed2023 blog says closed in 1972; the newsletter says closed after the 1971 seasonSource: scenesfromthetrail.com
  5. No record between 1972 and 2016
  6. 2016 FireFire burned quite close to the towerSource: nysffla.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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Roosa Gap Fire Tower stands in Roosa Gap State Forest, near the village of Wurtsboro in Sullivan County, New York.1,2 The state wanted to fill a gap in its coverage south of the High Point tower, so it asked a private landowner about putting a tower on their land.3 The owner agreed, and a 35-foot Aermotor tower went up in 1948, with an observer's cabin built at the same time.3

The tower is a steel Aermotor LS-40 with a small 7-by-7-foot cab.4 According to the April 2026 newsletter, ten observers served there through the 1971 season, and some stayed only a few months.3 A 2023 blog post gives 1972 as the year it closed, so the two accounts differ by one season.4

Fire has been a recurring risk here, and a 2016 blaze came close to the tower.3 The newsletter also quotes a story from a book on Catskills fire towers. In it, an observer smelled smoke he could not see, left the tower to find the fire, and on returning found the blaze had nearly destroyed the cabin and his truck.3

As of the April 2026 newsletter, the tower was still closed. A DEC forester had told the writer a year earlier that maintenance was still needed before the tower could reopen. The same newsletter notes that online reports still show people visiting, and that the DEC map lists the tower.3 The FFLA's New York chapter page likewise lists the tower as closed pending inspections.5

Today the state forest has one marked hiking trail, and its parking area sits where Plank Road, also called Fire Tower Road, ends.1 A 2023 blog post describes a walk up a gravel road from there, and says the tower was officially open at that time.4 The newer newsletter says it is closed, so treat the tower as off limits and do not climb it.

  1. Roosa Gap State Forest, NYSDEC, https://dec.ny.gov/places/roosa-gap-state-forest (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter newsletter, April 2026, https://www.nysffla.org/News2026/2026%20Apr%20final.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Roosa Gap State Forest, Scenes From The Trail, https://scenesfromthetrail.com/2023/05/10/roosa-gap-state-forest/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Fire Towers of New York State, Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter, http://nysffla.org/index.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

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. Map and Coordinates List for NYS DEC Firetowers (Andy Arthur) Gave us: agency, 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
  3. 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
  4. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: height, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  5. 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.