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McFarland, California

20 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1927 and the latest in 1993. It stands in the Delano-McFarland census division. It lies in ZIP code area 93250. The Survey maps it on the McFarland quadrangle. 14,161 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 354 feet above sea level.

McFarland within Kern County

Then and now

1927 to 1993

The same ground, surveyed 66 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of McFarland, surveyed 1993
Topographic sheet of McFarland, surveyed 1927

Population over time

2 figures

McFarland grew from 12,707 to 14,161 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.

YearPeople Change
201012,707
202014,161+1,454 (+11%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

11 surveys from 20 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

29 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 29 fires within 5 miles of McFarland between 1998 and 2020, burning about 36 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 5 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/undetermined20
Arson/incendiarism5
Natural1
Debris and open burning1
Equipment and vehicle use1
Misuse of fire by a minor1

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
3 August 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreCalifornia Department of Forestry & Fire Protectionnot named
25 August 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreCalifornia Department of Forestry & Fire Protectionnot named
11 August 1998Naturalunder an acreCentral California DistrictESPONDA
5 July 2006Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreCalifornia Department of Forestry & Fire Protectionnot named
28 July 2006Arson/incendiarismunder an acreCalifornia Department of Forestry & Fire Protectionnot named
22 July 2010Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreCentral California DistrictFRONT
14 July 2009Debris and open burningunder an acreCalifornia Department of Forestry & Fire Protectionnot named
6 June 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreCalifornia Department of Forestry & Fire Protectionnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Kern County

Storms near this place

1 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names McFarland in 1 storm report in 1993: 1 tornado. 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
February 1993Tornado (F0)McFarland$5,000A weather spotter and a National Weather Service forecaster observed a funnel cloud over a 15-minute period between the towns of Wasco and McFarland. The funnel went through several cycles of descending toward the ground then lifting back to the cloud base. Subsequently a report was received of a carport destroyed in McFarland indicating that at one point the funnel cloud did touch down as a tornado. Evidence of rotation was also apparent in nearby vegetation.

Every storm recorded in Kern 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
Hollis2.1 miles20
Vinland2.6 miles20
Calico3.3 miles20
Zentner3.6 miles20
Elmo5.4 miles20
Petro (historical)5.5 miles20
Famoso5.6 miles20
Pond5.9 miles20

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 McFarlandAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q977395The 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 1652750. 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.