FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Pend Oreille County, Washington

Yocum Lake Lookout Site

Also known as Yokum Lake

Colville NF, Pend Oreille County, WA 40-ft pole L-4 tower built 1935, abandoned in the 1940s and gone; a visitor found no evidence of it at the site.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in the 1940s; sources say it is gone, and a site visit found no evidence of the lookout

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. Site lies in the Colville National Forest and is administered by the U.S. Forest Service; reached by a rough forest road

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
From West Branch LeClerc Creek Road onto Antiquity Road, then a rough forest road; high clearance 4WD or a mile walk, per willhiteweb.com

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1935
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
3,284 ft (1,001 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Pend Oreille County, Washington
Coordinates
48.59468, −117.33011
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-yocum-lake

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. 1935 Built40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab constructedSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  2. 1940 AbandonedAbandoned in the 1940s; sources give no exact yearSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  3. No record between 1940 and 2020
  4. 2020 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered April 20, 2020 with the Former Fire Lookout Sites registerSource: firetower.org
  5. 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.

The Yocum Lake lookout went up in 1935 in the Colville National Forest, Pend Oreille County, Washington.1,2 It was a 40-foot pole tower topped with an L-4 cab, and the U.S. Forest Service administered the site.1 Sources spell the name both Yocum and Yokum.1,3

Sources date its abandonment to the 1940s and describe it as gone.1,2,4 A regional index marks the site as removed.3 Willhite notes that the lookout appears on a 1957 Metsker map but not on a 1941 one.4

Getting to the site means a rough forest road. Willhite's route turns off West Branch LeClerc Creek Road onto Antiquity Road, and beyond the last houses the road turns rough in spots.4 He lists access as high clearance 4WD or a one-mile walk.4 Willhite found no trace of the lookout on the ground, but he says the terrain points to the right spot.4 His visit is the only on-the-ground account in these sources.4

  1. Yocum Lake Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/yocum-lake-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Yocum Lake Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/yocumlake.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Yokum Lake, Forest Lookouts (Washington), https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/yokum-lake.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Yocum Lake Lookout Site, willhiteweb.com, http://willhiteweb.com/fire_lookouts/yocum_lake_lookout/tower_226.htm (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, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.