FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Thurston County, Washington

Rainier Lookout Site

A 1942 Army timber tower on Fort Lewis, replaced by steel in 1968, sold for scrap and rebuilt as IslandWood's Canopy Tower on Bainbridge Island by 2009.

The lookout that stood here was moved. Now at Islandwood

Moved: The structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from. Site is gone; the second (steel) tower survives, relocated and rebuilt as Canopy Tower at IslandWood, Bainbridge Island.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go. Original site was on an active military reservation; no current access information found.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Moved
Type
Cab on a towerFirst tower (1942): 100 ft timber tower, L-6 cab with catwalk. Second tower: all-steel, 112 ft per the register and firelookout.com, built 1968 per those two (the IslandWood rebuilder instead dates it to 1966 and gives no original height; its page describes only the rebuilt tower, inconsistently, as either 125 ft or 118 ft).The design: L-6
Built of
Steel
Built
1942
Height
Unknown
Elevation
500 ft (152 m)
Agency
U.S. Army (Fort Lewis Military Reservation)
Land
Unknown
Location
Thurston County, Washington
Coordinates
46.99139, −122.69157
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-rainier

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.

The structure was moved. This view is from the position Firefinder shows for this record, at 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. 1942 BuiltFirst tower: 100 ft timber tower with L-6 cab and catwalk, built by the U.S. Army on Fort Lewis Military ReservationSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1942 and 1966
  3. 1966 BuiltThe firm that later rebuilt the tower at IslandWood instead dates the steel tower's construction to 1966, not 1968; it gives no height for the original towerSource: seattlebridgebuilders.com
  4. 1968 BuiltReplaced by an all-steel tower, 112 ft tall, per the register and firelookout.comSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  5. No record between 1968 and 1998
  6. 1998 AbandonedRebuilder's account gives 1998 as when the steel tower was decommissioned and sold for scrap; the register and firelookout.com give 2000 for the saleSource: seattlebridgebuilders.com
  7. 2000 AbandonedRegister and firelookout.com: tower sold (and, per the register, moved to and sold again to IslandWood) around 2000Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  8. 2009 MovedReconstruction at IslandWood (Bainbridge Island) completed February 2009 by Sahale Snowkites & Climbing, reusing original Fort Lewis steel and adding a new ADA-compliant stairwell, stairs, catwalks and decks; dedicated under the name Canopy Tower in May 2009Sources: firetower.org, seattlebridgebuilders.com
  9. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered with the Former Fire Lookout Sites Register July 22, 2010, as US 559, WA 5, on a nomination by Irene PotterSource: firetower.org
  10. Date unknown MovedThe lookout was moved to Islandwood.Source: FFLA
  11. TodayMovedThe structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from.

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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Rainier lookout stood on the Fort Lewis Military Reservation in Thurston County, about five miles northwest of Yelm.1,2 The U.S. Army built the first tower here in 1942: a 100-foot timber structure carrying an L-6 cab and catwalk.1,2 It watched over the reservation's land for about 26 years before being replaced by an all-steel tower that the register and firelookout.com both put at 112 feet and date to 1968.1,2 The firm that later dismantled and rebuilt the tower at IslandWood dates that replacement to 1966 instead, and doesn't give the original tower's height at all — it only describes the tower as rebuilt, and inconsistently at that, calling the finished structure 125 feet tall in one place and 118 feet in another.3

The steel tower was decommissioned and sold for scrap around 2000, say the register and firelookout.com; the firm that rebuilt it instead gives 1998.1,2,3 It was bought again and trucked to Bainbridge Island, where the environmental education center IslandWood wanted it as an observation tower rising through the forest canopy. Rebuilding it took years: the firm Sahale LLC worked on the project from 2002, fabricated more than 23,000 pounds of new steel for stairs, a catwalk and an observation deck starting in 2006, and finished in February 2009, reusing the original galvanized steel members from Fort Lewis and adding an ADA-compliant helical stairwell through the middle.3 IslandWood dedicated the rebuilt structure under a new name, Canopy Tower, in May 2009.1

Nothing in the sources found so far says anything about who staffed the Rainier tower, what fires it reported, or exactly when in 1968 the replacement went up. The Former Fire Lookout Sites Register lists it as US 559, WA 5, registered July 22, 2010 on a nomination by Irene Potter, and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Washington list simply marks it "Gone."1,4 The Rainier site itself is gone; what survives is the steel from the second tower, standing now as Canopy Tower at IslandWood on Bainbridge Island.

  1. Rainier Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org), http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/rainier-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Rainier Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/wa/rainiertower.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Islandwood Canopy Tower, Seattle Bridge Builders LLC (Sahale LLC), https://seattlebridgebuilders.com/suspension-bridge-design-and-build/special-projects/islandwood-canopy-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  4. Washington lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org), https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/wa/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Rainier Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
1965 photo of wooden tower
1965 photo of wooden tower (1965)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, what it is built of, register numbers, 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: agency, 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, 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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