Fire lookout · Okanogan County, Washington
Strawberry Mountain Lookout
Also known as Strawberry Mountain (Col BIA)
Colville tribal-land tower built 1936 with an L-4 living cab; staffed into 1938, then abandoned. The steel tower stands; the cab is gone.
- Standing
- Tribal land: permission required
- Verified
Tribal land: permission required
This site is on tribal land. Ask the tribe for permission before visiting, and follow its rules. On Colville Confederated Tribal land. No trail or road leads to the tower, and non-tribal visitors must buy a recreation permit; check with the tribes before any trip.
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Tribal land: permission required. See the warning at the top of this page.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- No trail or road leads to the tower; TrailChick describes BIA roads, cross-country travel through fireweed, and a round trip of about 5.6 miles.
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower54 ft steel International Derrick tower; its L-4 living cab was destroyedCab: L-4; tower: IDECO
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1936
- Height
- 54 ft (16.5 m)
- Elevation
- 5,861 ft (1,786 m)
- Agency
- Colville Indian Reservation
- Land
- Tribal land
- Location
- Okanogan County, Washington
- Coordinates
- 48.45169, −118.93752
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-wa-strawberry-mountain
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.
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
- 1936 Built54 ft steel International Derrick tower with an L-4 cab for living quartersSources: nhlr.org, trailchick.com, firelookout.com
- 1938 AbandonedAbandoned after the 1938 staffing; the sources give no exact year, so 1938 is the closest recorded yearSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
- 1938 Last staffedStaffed into 1938; no exact date for the last watch is givenSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
- No record between 1938 and 2022
- 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered April 13, 2022 as US 1561, WA 88Source: nhlr.org
- TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.
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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Strawberry Mountain Lookout stands on the Colville Indian Reservation in Okanogan County, Washington.1,2 Its 54-foot steel International Derrick tower was built in 1936, and it had a separate L-4 cab for living quarters.1,2,3
The tower was staffed into 1938 and then abandoned.1,3 The sources do not give an exact date for the last watch.1
The cab did not survive. The register and TrailChick blame a fallen tree, while firelookout.com and willhiteweb.com blame a falling snag, so the sources disagree on what brought it down.1,2,3,4 The steel tower did survive, and one account says trees now grow inside its stairwell.4
The National Historic Lookout Register recorded the lookout on April 13, 2022, as US 1561.1
Today the tower is abandoned, and no trail or road leads directly to it.2,3 TrailChick describes a rough approach that turns onto BIA roads, then cross-country travel through fireweed, for a round trip of about 5.6 miles.2 The land is tribal, and TrailChick reports that non-tribal visitors to Colville Confederated Tribal land must buy an annual recreation permit, listed at $80, so check with the tribes before any trip.1,2,5 Do not climb the tower.
- Strawberry Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/wa/strawberry-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Strawberry Mountain, TrailChick, https://www.trailchick.com/wa-state-fire-lookouts/strawberry-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Strawberry Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/strawberrybia.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Strawberry Mountain Lookout, willhiteweb.com, https://www.willhiteweb.com/washington_fire_lookouts/strawberry_mountain_lookout/tower_226.htm (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Whitestone Ridge, TrailChick, https://www.trailchick.com/wa-state-fire-lookouts/whitestone-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, access, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) Gave us: design, dates, photos, 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) 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
- TrailChick: Washington State Fire Lookouts (opens another site) Gave us: height, photos TrailChick (trailchick.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, coordinates, elevation, lookout type, years built). The guide's text is not reproduced; its card photos are listed with credit to TrailChick, for the project's photo mirroring. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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
- NHLR register entry US 1561 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Strawberry Mountain Lookout (willhiteweb.com) (opens another site)
- Whitestone Ridge (TrailChick) (opens another site)
- FFLA Washington lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Strawberry Mountain Lookout - TrailChick (opens another site)
- Strawberry Mountain Lookout - Forest Lookouts Page (opens another site)
- Strawberry Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.