Arboles, Colorado
23 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1924 and the latest in 1983. It stands in the Arboles census division. It lies in ZIP code area 81121. The Survey maps it on the Allison quadrangle. 308 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 6,280 feet above sea level.
On record in Arboles
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
Labo Del Rio Bridgelisted 1985
Population over time
2 figuresArboles grew from 280 to 308 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 | 280 | |
| 2020 | 308 | +28 (+10%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
10 surveys from 23 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.
- 1924 USGS Pagosa Springs quadrangle1:125000, 2 printings
- 1927 USGS Pagosa Springs quadrangle1:125000, 3 printings
- 1945 USGS Durango quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1953 USGS Durango quadrangle1:250000
- 1954 USGS Allison quadrangle1:24000, 7 printings
- 1954 USGS Durango quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1961 USGS Durango quadrangle1:250000
- 1963 USGS Durango quadrangle1:250000
- 1966 USGS Durango quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1983 USGS Durango quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
170 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 170 fires within 5 miles of Arboles between 1992 and 2020, burning about 576 acres in total. 133 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 |
|---|---|
| Natural | 133 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 31 |
| Smoking | 3 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 1 |
| Debris and open burning | 1 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 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 2013 | Natural | under an acre | Farmington Field Office | HOLLY |
| 7 September 2018 | Natural | under an acre | Southern Ute Agency | ARBOLES BOWL |
| 5 September 2000 | Natural | under an acre | Southern Ute Agency | N ARBOLES |
| 3 September 2007 | Natural | under an acre | Southern Ute Agency | NM 38 |
| 3 September 1996 | Natural | under an acre | Southern Ute Agency | SCOGGINS |
| 29 September 2017 | Natural | under an acre | Los Pinos Fire Protection District | UNKNOWN |
| 18 September 1995 | Natural | under an acre | Southern Ute Agency | DEER CNY |
| 17 September 2011 | Natural | under an acre | Farmington Field Office | LAKE |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
8 since 1999Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Arboles in 8 storm reports between 1999 and 2025: 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 heavy rain, 1 hail, 1 debris flow. 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 2025 | Flash Flood | Arboles | $30,000 | Public reported flash flooding over Archuleta County Road 500/169 Trujillo Road between Arboles and Caracas. There were additional washouts reported near Arboles point, along Trujillo road about 2 miles southeast from the initial LSR location. |
| June 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Arboles | $15,000 | no account filed |
| April 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Arboles | $500 | no account filed |
| June 2025 | Debris Flow | Arboles | - | At approximately 6:20 PM MDT, a severe thunderstorm moved southwest of Chimney Rock National Monument, producing heavy rain and hail. This heavy rain fell on an area of very steep terrain and produced a mud flow and small rock slide across Colorado Highway 151. Aside from the road needing to be cleared, no damage, injuries, or fatalities were reported in association with this debris flow. |
| October 2025 | Flood | Arboles | - | The Piedra River had a rapid rise in levels throughout the morning and afternoon of October 11th due to abundant rainfall starting on October 10th. It first crested to a preliminary level of 5.86 ft around midnight 10/12. A second crest occurred to a preliminary level of 7.26 ft on 10/14 around 1300 MST. This set a new record, beating the previous crest record of 6.4 ft which was set back on 9/6/1970. Most issues were adjacent to the 151 corridor north of Arboles where numerous drives were under water, one garage had some water in it. Forest Service Rd 613 did have some inundation but most bridges had several feet of clearance. USFS 613 which is parallel to the river did have water in some areas. |
| September 2013 | Hail | Arboles | - | no account filed |
| November 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Arboles | - | no account filed |
| September 2004 | Heavy Rain | Arboles | - | no account filed |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stollsteimer | 8.6 miles | 17 | |
| Carracas | 8.7 miles | 23 | |
| Pagosa Junction | 11.7 miles | 22 | |
| Gato | 11.8 miles | 22 | |
| Piedra | 14.1 miles | 17 | |
| Juanita | 14.2 miles | 22 | |
| Chimney Rock (historical) | 14.3 miles | 17 | |
| Kearns | 15.5 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 Arboles | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q385093 | 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 184512. 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.









