Fire lookouts have a long history to help fight wildfires in Idaho

The Boise National Forest continues to use fire lookouts today as they have around eight staffed lookouts during wildfire season, these lookouts have also played a pivotal role in the history of fighting wildfire.

The story begins in 1908 when the Boise National Forest service started. A forest supervisor was walking towards a wildfire when he ran into Harry Shellworth who was working for the Boise Payette Lumber Company.

"At that time they both saw the need to defend our wild areas from fire. They set up a gentlemen's agreement and it spurred on the Southern Idaho Timber Protective Association."

This partnership would build the first fire lookout in the area in 1908 on top of Bald Mountain, today it is called the Thorn Creek Lookout.

"It has been rebuilt, it is still standing and it is staffed. For the most part we have rebuilt a lot of our lookouts since the 1930s since the Civilian Conservation Corps came about."

The CCC was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 as a means to get out of the great depression. Harry Shellworth saw an opportunity and went to Washington D.C. to advocate for CCC funding in Idaho.

"Behind California Idaho was the most densely populated with CCC folks and CCC camps," said Clifton. "With that came a lot of construction of lookouts."

The Shafer Butte Lookout had already been built in 1925, but the Quartzfire of 1931 ended up scorching much of the Boise Boise. The Civilian Conservation Corps went to work building the Boise Ridge Road as a fire break and for another access point to the lookout.

It's still standing on top of what is now Bogus Basin Ski Resort. In total there were 163 CCC camps in Idaho with 20,000 people working on a variety of projects including lookouts that were now located all over Idaho on the top of mountain peaks.

"I think part of the reason why Idaho has a history of so many lookouts across the entire state and not just the Boise National Forest is because of our terrain. Our terrain is so steep and so rugged that it makes communications with fire managers outside of lookouts a lot more challenging."

Fire lookouts have always been the best way to catch a wildfire when it's small. New technology has emerged including cameras and artificial intelligence to detect smoke, but people still man some of the lookouts in the Boise National Forest.

Many of the lookouts have been rebuilt from their earlier days while some like the Deadwood Lookout is available for people to rent out and stay in. That lookout earned a designation on the National Register of Historic Places, it's also under threat right now from the Nellie Fire.

Idaho also has others that qualify for that designation like the Danskin Peak Lookout built in 1941 and Virginia Clifton is working to help preserve these historic lookouts.

"It’s been my goal since I started with the Boise National Forest in 2016. I want to get all of our lookouts recorded and documented, not all of them are and we need to get all of them evaluated for the National Register of Historic Places."

If you want to learn more about how lookouts work and the value they provide here is a story we did on the Danskin Lookout.