Hat Creek, California
28 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1995. It stands in the East Shasta census division. It lies in ZIP code area 96040. It lies near Brown Butte. The Survey maps it on the Burney Mountain East quadrangle. 266 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 3,422 feet above sea level.
Then and now
1886 to 1995The same ground, surveyed 109 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.


Population over time
2 figuresHat Creek fell from 309 to 266 between 2010 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 309 | |
| 2020 | 266 | -43 (-14%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
15 surveys from 28 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1886 USGS Lassen Peak quadrangle1:250000
- 1892 USGS Lassen Peak quadrangle1:250000
- 1894 USGS Lassen Peak quadrangle1:250000, 8 printings
- 1935 USGS Burney quadrangle1:125000
- 1935 USGS Burney quadrangle1:96000
- 1939 USGS Burney quadrangle1:125000, 3 printings
- 1955 USGS Westwood quadrangle1:250000
- 1957 USGS Burney quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1958 USGS Westwood quadrangle1:250000
- 1959 USGS Westwood quadrangle1:250000
- 1962 USGS Susanville quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1968 USGS Susanville quadrangle1:250000
- 1976 USGS Burney quadrangle1:100000, 3 printings
- 1990 USGS Burney Mountain East quadrangle1:24000
- 1995 USGS Burney Mountain East quadrangle1:24000
Fires near this place
116 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 116 fires within 5 miles of Hat Creek between 1992 and 2020, burning about 2,342 acres in total. 35 started naturally. 12 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 |
|---|---|
| Natural | 35 |
| Debris and open burning | 25 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 17 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 12 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 10 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 10 |
| Smoking | 3 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 3 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 September 2017 | Natural | under an acre | Lassen National Forest | LANE FIRE |
| 4 September 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Lassen National Forest | DOTY |
| 30 September 1999 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Lassen National Forest | CONE 2 |
| 3 September 1997 | Natural | under an acre | Lassen National Forest | BENCH |
| 3 September 1997 | Natural | under an acre | Lassen National Forest | DIGGER |
| 29 September 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection | CASSEL |
| 28 September 1994 | Natural | under an acre | Lassen National Forest | LITTLE |
| 28 September 1992 | Smoking | under an acre | Lassen National Forest | TRAILER |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
2 since 2014Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Hat Creek in 2 storm reports between 2014 and 2017: 2 hail. 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 2017 | Hail | Hat Creek | - | Nickel size hail, strong gusty wind and lightning strikes reported. Event time estimated by radar. |
| August 2014 | Hail | Hat Creek | - | Quarter-size hail was reported on the se flank of the Eiler Fire. |
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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doyles Corner | 4.1 miles | 28 | |
| Cassel | 6.4 miles | 28 | |
| Johnson Park | 8.5 miles | 28 | |
| Burney | 8.6 miles | 28 | |
| Four Corners | 8.9 miles | 28 | |
| Old Station | 11.6 miles | 28 | |
| Whittington Place | 12.2 miles | 29 | |
| Fall River Mills | 12.7 miles | 21 |
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 Hat Creek | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q3476058 | The 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 1759222. 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.
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.














