Kane Mountain Fire Observation Station

Built in 1925. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. 12 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1901.

From the record

“The Kane Mountain Fire Observation Station is a historic fire observation station located on Kane Mountain at Caroga in Fulton County, New York. The station includes a 60-foot-tall (18 m), steel-frame lookout tower erected in 1925, an observer's cabin built about 1960, and foot trail.”
Wikipedia article Kane Mountain Fire Observation Station, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 25 National Register listings published here for Fulton County · listed in 2001 · category: Structure · built in 1925.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 2 structuress as contributing to the listing.
Address. Kane Mountain, Caroga, 12032
When was it listed? September 2001
Category. structure
Also known as. Fire Observation Stations of New York State Forest Preserve MPS
Town. Caroga town
When was it built? 1925
National Register reference number. 01001033 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1901 to 1997

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 96 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Kane Mountain Fire Observation Station, surveyed 1997

Topographic sheet covering Kane Mountain Fire Observation Station, surveyed 1901

Fires near this property

43 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 43 fires within 5 miles of Kane Mountain Fire Observation Station between 1996 and 2020, burning about 34 acres in total. 5 started naturally. 3 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Recreation and ceremony	18
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Natural	5
Debris and open burning	4
Arson/incendiarism	3
Smoking	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
5 September 2007	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
4 September 2007	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	New York Forest Rangers	BOULDER
26 September 2007	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
22 September 2005	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
14 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	New York Forest Rangers	BROOMSTICK LAKE CAMPFIRE
9 August 2002	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	New York Forest Rangers	CAROGA FIRE
9 August 1998	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	New York Forest Rangers	not named
7 August 2007	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	New York Forest Rangers	NINE CORNER LAKE

Every fire recorded in Fulton County

Maps showing this location

12 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1901 USGS Lassellsville quadrangle1:62500
1903 USGS Lassellsville quadrangle1:62500 - 6 printings
1945 USGS Canada Lake quadrangle1:24000 - 4 printings
1945 USGS Lassellsville quadrangle1:62500
1946 USGS Canada Lake quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings
1950 USGS Utica quadrangle1:250000
1957 USGS Utica quadrangle1:250000
1962 USGS Utica quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1964 USGS Utica quadrangle1:250000
1967 USGS Utica quadrangle1:250000
1985 USGS Gloversville quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings
1997 USGS Canada Lake quadrangle1:24000

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 01001033 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Fulton County	All 25 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.