Fire lookout tower in Rybinsk, Fire lookout tower in Rybinsk, Russia

The Rybinsk fire lookout tower is a 48-metre reinforced-concrete tower built in 1912 to a modernist design by city architect I. K. Khotin. Its five-tier frame of inclined posts and horizontal beams is filled with brick, and it stands on Stoyalaya Street at the site of two earlier towers.

The first wooden fire tower of 1825 was replaced by a stone one in 1843 at the corner of Stoyalaya Street and Teatralnaya Square. A fire on 10 May 1911 destroyed its wooden parts, and in 1912 the city built the present reinforced-concrete tower to a design by architect I. K. Khotin, constructed by the Saratov firm "I. G. Gringof and Co."

The tower represents how the city approached fire safety as an urban concern in the 1800s. It shows the practical methods that residents relied on to protect their neighborhoods from danger.

The tower stands at Stoyala Street 30, on the corner with Teatralnaya Square, a short walk from the city centre. It is a federal cultural heritage site and now part of Rybinsk's guided tour routes; interior access is not open to individual visitors, so view it from the street.

The 1912 tower is a monolithic reinforced-concrete frame with brick infill, designed by city architect I. K. Khotin. The contractor was the Saratov firm "I. G. Gringof and Co.", which also built Russia's first reinforced-concrete lock in Rybinsk. The facade paint had to be applied within eight hours of production and was delivered from Moscow in special containers.