Photograph of Punta Gorda Light — Photograph by United States Coast Guard, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Punta Gorda Light Station

Built in 1912. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. 7 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1926.

From the record

“Punta Gorda Lighthouse is a lighthouse in the United States, 12 miles (19 km) south of Cape Mendocino, California, within Humboldt County. Access is via a short hike from the end of a 4WD road, or a slightly longer hike along the beach southward from the camping area at the mouth of the Mattole River.”
Wikipedia article Punta Gorda Light, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 52 National Register listings published here for Humboldt County · listed in 1976 · category: Building · built in 1912.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. 10.5 mi. SW of Petrolia, Petrolia, 95558
When was it listed? September 1976
Category. building
Census division. Ferndale
When was it built? 1912
National Register reference number. 76000483 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

30 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 30 fires within 5 miles of Punta Gorda Light Station between 1993 and 2017, burning about 802 acres in total. None 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
Recreation and ceremony	12
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Arson/incendiarism	5
Debris and open burning	4
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Other causes	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
15 September 2017	Debris and open burning	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	LIGHTHOUSE RD / EVERGREEN
6 August 1999	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Northern California District	MILL
21 August 1995	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Central California District	MATTOLE#2
20 August 2001	Recreation and ceremony	60 acres	Northern California District	HUU RANDAL
20 August 1995	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Humboldt-Del Norte Unit	COOLABEACH
17 August 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Northern California District	DRIFTWOOD
4 July 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Humboldt-Del Norte Unit	CHAMBERS
30 July 1995	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Central California District	MATTOLE #1

Every fire recorded in Humboldt County

Storms near this property

1 since 2026

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Petrolia, the town this property stands in, in 1 storm report in 2026: 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
January 2026	Flash Flood	Petrolia	-	Washed out road near the intersection of Mattole and Clarke roads.

Every storm recorded in Humboldt County

Maps showing this location

7 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the middle of the area the National Park Service maps for this listing, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1926 USGS Gorda quadrangle1:62500 - 2 printings
1949 USGS Eureka quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1958 USGS Eureka quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1961 USGS Eureka quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1969 USGS Cooskie Creek quadrangle1:24000 - 3 printings
1989 USGS Cape Mendocino quadrangle1:100000
1997 USGS Cooskie Creek quadrangle1:24000

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 76000483 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Humboldt County	All 52 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
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.