Balsam Lake Mountain Fire Observation Station

Built in 1930. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. 9 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1901.

From the record

“The Balsam Lake Mountain Fire Observation Station is located at the summit of the mountain of that name in the Town of Hardenburgh, New York, United States. It comprises a steel frame fire lookout tower, the observer's cabin and privy and the jeep road to the complex.”
Wikipedia article Balsam Lake Mountain Fire Observation Station, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 209 National Register listings published here for Ulster County · listed in 2001 · category: Structure · built in 1930.

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 buildingss, 1 site, 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. Balsam Lake Mountain, Hardenburgh, 12758
When was it listed? September 2001
Category. structure
Also known as. Fire Observation Stations of New York State Forest Preserve MPS
Town. Hardenburgh town
When was it built? 1930
National Register reference number. 01001038 - 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.

Fires near this property

8 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 8 fires within 5 miles of Balsam Lake Mountain Fire Observation Station between 1992 and 2016, burning about 154 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was 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	3
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1
Debris and open burning	1
Natural	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
28 August 1999	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	New York Forest Rangers	not named
29 June 1994	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	New York Forest Rangers	not named
20 June 2005	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
20 May 1992	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	140 acres	New York Forest Rangers	not named
23 April 1994	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	New York Forest Rangers	not named
10 April 1999	Equipment and vehicle use	11 acres	New York Forest Rangers	not named
18 November 2016	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
25 October 2008	Natural	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named

Every fire recorded in Ulster County

Maps showing this location

9 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 Margaretville quadrangle1:62500
1904 USGS Margaretville quadrangle1:62500 - 7 printings
1945 USGS Seager quadrangle1:24000 - 5 printings
1946 USGS Seager quadrangle1:24000
1948 USGS Binghamton quadrangle1:250000
1950 USGS Binghamton quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1958 USGS Binghamton quadrangle1:250000
1963 USGS Binghamton quadrangle1:250000
1986 USGS Pepacton Reservoir quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings

Listed places nearby

2 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Grant Mills Covered Bridge	3.0 miles	1998
	Coykendall Lodge	4.1 miles	2002

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 01001038 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Ulster County	All 209 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.