Maxwell, California
15 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1906 and the latest in 1994. It stands in the Central Colusa census division. It lies in ZIP code area 95955. The Survey maps it on the Maxwell quadrangle. 1,067 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 92 feet above sea level.
Then and now
1906 to 1994The same ground, surveyed 88 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 figuresMaxwell fell from 1,103 to 1,067 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 | 1,103 | |
| 2020 | 1,067 | -36 (-3%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 15 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.
- 1906 USGS Maxwell quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
- 1917 USGS Delevan quadrangle1:31680
- 1952 USGS Maxwell quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
- 1952 USGS Maxwell quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Ukiah quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1960 USGS Ukiah quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1994 USGS Lakeport quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
14 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 14 fires within 5 miles of Maxwell between 1992 and 2018, burning about 776 acres in total. None 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 |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 9 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 3 |
| Debris and open burning | 1 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 September 1993 | Equipment and vehicle use | 15 acres | Delevan National Wildlife Refuge | TRACT 27 |
| 28 September 2002 | Debris and open burning | 3.0 acres | Delevan National Wildlife Refuge | D43 ESC |
| 22 September 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge | I-5 RENNICK THREAT |
| 14 August 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 60 acres | Sonoma-Lake Napa Unit | MAXWELL |
| 12 August 1992 | Equipment and vehicle use | 190 acres | Sonoma-Lake Napa Unit | MILLS |
| 31 July 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Delevan National Wildlife Refuge | DELEVAN #1 |
| 10 July 1995 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Sonoma-Lake Napa Unit | SITES |
| 6 June 2018 | Recreation and ceremony | 2.0 acres | San Luis National Wildlife Refuge | 5 ON 5 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
4 since 2011Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Maxwell in 4 storm reports between 2011 and 2017: 2 tornado, 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 2017 | Flood | Maxwell | $7,000,000 | The town of Maxwell, CA started flooding near 2:00 am due to rain in the last day causing local creeks to rise. The Colusa County Sheriff's Office posted a voluntary evacuation notice at 8:30 am, with some people evacuated by boat. Interstate 5 near Maxwell was under a foot of water, causing travel disruption. |Water inundated most of the homes in a 9-block area in Maxwell. Damage to an elementary school, a sheriff's substation, roads and 78 homes could total $7 million, according to the Colusa County Office of Emergency Services. |
| April 2016 | Thunderstorm Wind | Maxwell | - | Two gustnados were sightednear the Interstate 5 exit at Maxwell. One crossed I-5 and quickly dispersed. The second one formed breifly off I 5 and was videotaped by a passing vehicle. A thunderstorm was west of the area, but there was no connection between the gustnado to the storm. No damage was reported. |
| February 2013 | Tornado (EF0) | Maxwell | - | A brief landspout tornado was reported by the public and verified as a landspout by video footage. This tornado was rated as an EF0 that occurred at approximately 2PM in a field south of Fairview Rd by Danley Rd. No damage and no injuries were associated with this tornado. |
| March 2011 | Tornado (EF0) | Maxwell | - | At approximately 3:05 pm an EF0 tornado touched down in a pasture about 2 miles west of downtown Maxwell. The pasture is located just north of Maxwell Sites Rd., between McDermott Rd. and Danley Rd. There was no damage observed, but several witnesses observed a brief touchdown in the grassy field, which is used as pasture for a herd of buffalo. There were no injuries nor fatalities. |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cortena | 4.0 miles | 17 | |
| Mills Orchards | 4.4 miles | 18 | |
| Lurline (historical) | 4.9 miles | 17 | |
| Delevan | 5.4 miles | 15 | |
| Delphos | 6.0 miles | 17 | |
| Sites | 8.1 miles | 18 | |
| Williams | 8.7 miles | 17 | |
| Colusa Rancheria | 9.0 miles | 16 |
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 Maxwell | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q6796063 | 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 228245. 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.






