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Picacho, Arizona

19 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1934 and the latest in 1996. It stands in the Florence census division. It lies in ZIP code area 85141. The Survey maps it on the Newman Peak quadrangle. 250 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,614 feet above sea level.

Picacho within Pinal County

On record in Picacho

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 1 record

Population over time

3 figures

Picacho fell from 521 to 250 between 2000 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
2000521
2010471-50 (-10%)
2020250-221 (-47%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

11 surveys from 19 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

Fires near this place

310 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 310 fires within 5 miles of Picacho between 1992 and 2020, burning about 3,877 acres in total. None started naturally. 9 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined201
Debris and open burning31
Smoking30
Railroad operations and maintenance20
Equipment and vehicle use15
Arson/incendiarism9
Recreation and ceremony3
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
7 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreArizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Officenot named
6 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreArizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State OfficeELEVEN MILE
3 September 1993Smokingunder an acreArizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Officenot named
23 September 2007Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreArizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State OfficeVAN DAMME
2 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreEloy Fire DistrictNOT NAMED
2 September 2014Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.6 acresArizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State OfficeMCCLELLAN
17 September 1996Debris and open burningunder an acreArizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Officenot named
15 September 2007Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreArizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State OfficeRED ROCK ROAD

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Pinal County

Mines and quarries near this place

9 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Picacho: 4 past producers, 3 occurrences, 2 prospects. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Copper, Zeolites, Lead. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Gibson ClaimsCopper, LeadProspect
Picacho Reservoir AnalcimeZeolitesOccurrenceAnalcime
Picacho Reservoir Analcime Occur.ZeolitesProspect
Unnamed ProspectCopperOccurrenceVein
Unnamed ProspectCopperOccurrenceVein
Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Pinal County

Storms near this place

3 since 2014

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Picacho in 3 storm reports between 2014 and 2025: 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
September 2014Thunderstorm WindPicacho$500,000Thunderstorm winds damaged 6 warehouses at the cotton-storage facility STS Land Holding in Eloy. Four warehouses were listed as a 30 to 50 percent loss. The other 2 buildings were still marginally usable. The warehouses, covered in tin, were mostly empty at the time. A few minutes later, 39 out of 107 cars on a Union Pacific train were derailed near the Interstate 10 Picacho exit. The freight containers were empty at the time. No one was injured. Extensive damage to the tracks also resulted causing the rail line to remain out of service until repairs were completed, three days later.
October 2025Flash FloodPicacho$500Webcam shows water over bankfull at the McClellan Wash at the Central Arizona Project Wash.
October 2022HailPicacho-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Pinal County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Eloy4.2 miles19
Wymola6.3 miles19
Friendly Corners7.4 miles19
Toltec8.2 miles19
Arizona City9.7 miles20
La Palma11.3 miles21
Laguna11.4 miles19
Eleven Mile Corner11.9 miles21

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on PicachoAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q6647057The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 9393. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

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.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.