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Fire lookout · Pend Oreille County, Washington

Sand Creek Lookout Site

Colville National Forest lookout site in Pend Oreille County: a 30-foot wooden L-4 tower built in 1937, now gone, with its exact location still unconfirmed.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The Register and firelookout.com say it is gone. WillhiteWeb has not visited and says the location needs confirming.

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
Nothing to climb. WillhiteWeb has not visited the site and says its location needs confirming.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot wooden L-4 tower with cab, per FFLOS, firelookout.com and WillhiteWebThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1937
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
4,560 ft (1,390 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Pend Oreille County, Washington
Coordinates
48.81884, −117.33234
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-sand-creek

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 its recorded height.

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. 1937 Built30-foot wooden L-4 tower with cab, per FFLOS, firelookout.com and WillhiteWebSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  2. No record between 1937 and 2012
  3. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered December 17, 2012, nominated by Ray KresekSource: firetower.org
  4. 2014 Event2014 Forest Service map shows the lookout location, per WillhiteWeb captionsSource: willhiteweb.com
  5. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Sand Creek Lookout stood in the Colville National Forest in Pend Oreille County, at about 4,560 feet.1,2 The Register and firelookout.com both date it to 1937 and describe a 30-foot wooden L-4 tower.1,2 WillhiteWeb gives the same year and tower size.3

The tower is gone, according to the Register, firelookout.com and Forest Lookouts.1,2,4

Eric Willhite has not visited the site.3 He says its location still needs confirming. It may be on the lower bumps to the west, on Sand Creek Mountain, which sits on the west side of Sullivan Lake.3 Footings likely remain, he says, and recent Forest Service maps label those western bumps.3 A 2014 Forest Service map shows the lookout location, according to his captions.3

The Register lists the Forest Service as administrator of the land.1 None of the sources we read describes a road or trail to the site today.1,2,4,3

  1. Sand Creek Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/sand-creek-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Sand Creek Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/sandcreek.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Sand Creek Lookout Site, WillhiteWeb.com, http://willhiteweb.com/fire_lookouts/sand_creek_lookout/tower_212.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Sand Creek, Forest Lookouts, https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/sand-creek.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, 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. WillhiteWeb.com: Washington Fire Lookouts Gave us: links WillhiteWeb.com · No licence stated; names and page links only (the site's photos and text are not reproduced). · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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.