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Fire lookout · Lane County, Oregon

Burnt Top Lookout Site

Lane County, OR summit in the Willamette NF: L-5 cab dated 1934 (a 1933 item says a house was finished); removed or destroyed 1965; ground site, no remains described.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cab removed (register) or destroyed (Firelookout.com) in 1965; no source describes what remains

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
Trail
No tower or cab remains to climb; no source describes the summit today or whether it is open to visitors

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-5 cabThe design: L-5
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,323 ft (1,927 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Lane County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.04072, −121.87437
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-burnt-top

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 3.9 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. 1933 EventEugene Guard, October 14, 1933, as quoted by Forest Lookouts: a telephone line being completed from the Burnt Top lookout station to Horse Lake ranger stationSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 BuiltRegister and Firelookout.com date the L-5 cab to 1934. Forest Lookouts quotes a Eugene Guard item from November 8, 1933 saying a crew had completed a lookout house and telephone line; the years conflictSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1955
  4. 1955 EventUS Geological Survey station description, 1955: station mark at the center of the single-story USFS lookoutSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1965 RemovedRegister: cab removed in 1965. Firelookout.com: destroyed in 1965. Forest Lookouts: lookout removed in 1965Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1965 and 2011
  7. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered April 24, 2011 as US 943, OR 301; nominated by Ray KresekSource: firetower.org
  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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Burnt Top is a 6,323-foot summit in the Willamette National Forest, about 27 miles west of Bend, in Lane County.1,2

Sources differ on the year the lookout went up. The register and Firelookout.com both give 1934 and describe an L-5 cab.1,2 Forest Lookouts quotes a Eugene Guard item from November 1933 saying a crew had completed a lookout house on Burnt Top mountain, along with a telephone line to it.3 An October 1933 item from the same paper said a telephone line was being completed from the Burnt Top lookout station to the Horse Lake ranger station.3

The register gives 1965 as the year the cab was removed.1 Firelookout.com says it was destroyed that year, and Forest Lookouts also puts the removal in 1965.2,3

A 1955 U.S. Geological Survey station description put the survey mark at the center of the single-story lookout.3

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the site as ground-level and gone.4 No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the summit now, or whether visitors may go there, so check with the Willamette National Forest before heading up.

  1. Burnt Top Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/burnt-top-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Burnt Top Fire Lookout Cabin, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/burnttop.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Burnt Top, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/burnt-top.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Oregon Lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Burnt Top Mountain panoramic 9-7-1933
Burnt Top Mountain panoramic 9-7-1933 (1933)Photo: National Archives-Pacific Northwest Region, via 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, what it is built of, 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: 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, 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.