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Fire lookout · Lane County, Oregon

Mount Fuji Lookout Site

Also known as Fuji Mountain

Willamette lookout site on Fuji Mountain, Lane County: fire finder 1919, cabin 1926-1928, R-6 cabin 1959, burned or removed 1968; now a former lookout summit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The cabin burned in 1968 per the register and firelookout.com; the Rex's page gives August 26, 1968 as the removal date.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Reached by a short out-and-back hike from the Upper Trailhead on FR 5883. The summit is a former fire lookout site, not a standing tower.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Drive FR 5883 to the Upper Trailhead (about 10.5 miles, potholed for the first mile), then hike out and back to the summit.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabR-6 ground cabin (1959), replacing an earlier cupola cabinThe designs: R-6, D-6
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1926
Height
Unknown
Elevation
7,144 ft (2,178 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Lane County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.65920, −122.10325
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-mount-fuji

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. 1919 EventEstablished as a tent camp and fire finder stand; an alidade established to locate firesSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1923 StaffedEdgar Buchanan was lookout on Fuji for the summerSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1926 BuiltD-6 cab erected per the register; a September 1926 item reported two lookout houses built, one on FujiSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1928 Builtfirelookout.com dates a cupola cabin to 1928Source: firelookout.com
  5. 1934 StaffedOrlo Flock heading to the summer lookout station on FujiSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1935 Condition assessmentInspection asked whether lightning protection on old lookout houses should be brought up to standard; Fuji was the exampleSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. No record between 1935 and 1959
  8. 1959 Replaced by a new structureR-6 ground cabin built, replacing the earlier cabinSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  9. 1968 BurnedLookout cabin burned, nine years after the 1959 cabinSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  10. 1968 RemovedRex's Fire Lookout Page gives August 26, 1968 as the date the lookout house was removedSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  11. No record between 1968 and 2011
  12. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered with Former Fire Lookout Sites on April 25, 2011Source: firetower.org
  13. 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.

Fuji Mountain sits in Lane County, in the Willamette National Forest, about 18 miles southeast of Oakridge.1,2 The site dates to 1919, when it was set up as a tent camp with a fire finder stand.1 That year an alidade was put in place to help locate fires.3

Sources disagree on the first cabin. The register says a D-6 cab was erected in 1926.1 A September 1926 newspaper item reported two lookout houses built, one on Fuji, and a January 1927 item said one was placed there.3 The firelookout.com page dates a cupola cabin to 1928.2

Edgar Buchanan worked as the lookout on Fuji in the summer of 1923.3 Orlo Flock was on his way to the summer station there in 1934.3 A 1935 general inspection raised whether lightning protection on old lookout houses needed upgrading, and used Fuji Mountain as its example.3

In 1959 an R-6 ground cabin replaced the older cabin.1,3 The register and firelookout.com both say it burned nine years later, in 1968.1,2 Rex's Fire Lookout Page gives August 26, 1968, as the date the lookout house was removed.3

The summit is now a former fire lookout site. The Oregon Hikers guide describes a short out-and-back hike from the Upper Trailhead, after a 10.5-mile drive on FR 5883.4 No source I read describes what remains of the cabin or its footings.

  1. Mount Fuji Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/mount-fuji-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Fuji Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/fujimtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Fuji Mountain - Forest Lookouts, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/fuji-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Fuji Mountain Hike, Oregon Hikers Field Guide, https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide/Fuji_Mountain_Hike (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Mount Fuji Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Original firefinder platform
Original firefinder platformPhoto: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
On fire in 1968
On fire in 1968 (1968)Photo: 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, 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, access, 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

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