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Fire lookout · Pend Oreille County, Washington

Diamond Peak Lookout Site (Kaniksu NF)

Also known as Diamond Peak

Diamond Peak's 1934 pole tower and L-4 cab came down about 1960; a patrol tower a short hike away was still standing in the 1980s.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Summit tower gone since about 1960; captions describe its footings, and a patrol tower stood nearby.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. A year-round gate sits just before Petit Lake; Willhite says the road was closed in the late 1990s to protect grizzly bear habitat.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Hiking distance 1.8 miles with 800 ft gain (start point not stated); fair gravel roads run to the gate; add 0.7 miles for the patrol point.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
4,659 ft (1,420 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Pend Oreille County, Washington
Coordinates
48.63238, −117.07896
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-diamond-peak-kaniksu-nf

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 4.1 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. 1934 Built50-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firetower.org, willhiteweb.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1960
  3. 1960 RemovedAbout 1960; the register says removed, Willhite says destroyedSources: firetower.org, willhiteweb.com
  4. No record between 1960 and 1980
  5. 1980 EventPatrol platform tower still there in the 1980s (decade only)Source: firetower.org
  6. No record between 1980 and 2012
  7. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: December 14, 2012Source: FFLOS register entry
  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.

A fire lookout went up on Diamond Peak in 1934.1,2 It was a 50-foot pole structure topped by an L-4 cab, and it was in use into the late 1950s.2 Around 1960 it came down.1,2 The sources agree on that date but not on the verb: the register says the tower was removed, while the Willhite site says it was destroyed.1,2

A patrol platform stood about three-quarters of a mile from the summit, just past the 4,413-foot point. It looked into a blind spot the summit could not see.1,2 The register says it was still there in the 1980s, with help from a tree growing underneath it.1 Willhite's page says it still stands and will soon collapse or burn, but it gives no date for that observation.2

Today Willhite lists the summit hike at about 1.8 miles with roughly 800 feet of climbing. Fair gravel roads run to a year-round gate just before Petit Lake.2 Willhite says the access road was shut in the late 1990s to protect grizzly bear habitat.2 Photo captions on the same page describe footings at the tower site and steps leading up to it, and a former road is now a trail.2 No source says whether the public may pass the gate, so check with the Kaniksu National Forest before you go.1,2

  1. Diamond Peak Lookout Site (Kaniksu NF), Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, firetower.org, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/diamond-peak-lookout-site-kaniksu-nf/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Diamond Peak Lookout & Patrol Site, WillhiteWeb.com, https://www.willhiteweb.com/washington_fire_lookouts/diamond_peak_lookout_site/patrol_tower_360.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Diamond Peak Lookout Site (Kaniksu NF)
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
1934
1934 (1934)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: 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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