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Fire lookout · Harney County, Oregon

Burnt Mountain Lookout Site

Harney County L-5 lookout site on the Malheur NF: cab built 1932 (1934 per one source) and removed or destroyed in 1968. No current site description found.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. L-5 cab removed or destroyed in 1968; no source describes what remains at the 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
Ground-level cabL-5 cab; Kemnow describes a 10 by 10 L-5 ground houseThe design: L-5
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,503 ft (1,677 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Malheur National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Harney County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.88431, −119.07618
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-burnt-mountain

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 4.0 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 BuiltL-5 cab, per the register and firelookout.comSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1934 EventKemnow dates a 10 by 10 L-5 ground house to 1934; disagrees with the 1932 dateSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1968
  4. 1968 RemovedRegister says removed; firelookout.com says destroyed; Kemnow says removedSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1968 and 2011
  6. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: June 13, 2011Source: FFLOS register entry
  7. 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Burnt Mountain is a former lookout site in the Malheur National Forest, in Harney County.1 It stood about 20 miles north of Burns.2 The register puts the site at 5,503 feet, or 1,677 meters.1

The register and firelookout.com both date the L-5 cab to 1932.1,2 Ron Kemnow's listing gives 1934 instead, for a 10 by 10 L-5 ground house.3 The sources disagree on the first year, and these pages do not settle it.

All three sources give 1968 as the year the lookout came down. The register says the cab was removed. Firelookout.com says it was destroyed. Kemnow's listing says removed, too.1,2,3

The Former Fire Lookout Sites Register listed the site on June 13, 2011, on the nomination of Ray Kresek.1 We found no source that describes what remains at the site today, or whether the public can visit it.

  1. Burnt Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/burnt-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Burnt Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/burntmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Burnt Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/burnt-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Burnt Mountain Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.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. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, 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. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: what it is built of, design, links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. 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.