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Blanca, Colorado

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1988. It stands in the Blanca census division. It lies in ZIP code area 81123. The Survey maps it on the Blanca quadrangle. 322 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 7,756 feet above sea level.

Blanca within Costilla County

On record in Blanca

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

Population over time

2 figures

Blanca fell from 385 to 322 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
2010385
2020322-63 (-16%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 11 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

19 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 19 fires within 5 miles of Blanca between 1992 and 2020, burning about 13 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 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 ceremony8
Smoking3
Arson/incendiarism3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2
Debris and open burning1
Misuse of fire by a minor1
Railroad operations and maintenance1

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
30 September 1993Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCostilla County Fire Protection Districtnot named
27 September 1993Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCostilla County Fire Protection Districtnot named
27 September 1993Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCostilla County Fire Protection Districtnot named
5 July 1993Misuse of fire by a minor1.0 acresCostilla County Fire Protection Districtnot named
4 July 1993Arson/incendiarism1.0 acresCostilla County Fire Protection Districtnot named
27 June 1994Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCostilla County Fire Protection Districtnot named
9 April 1993Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCostilla County Fire Protection Districtnot named
28 April 2020Smokingunder an acreCostilla County Fire Protection DistrictN/A

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Costilla County

Storms near this place

3 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Blanca in 3 storm reports between 1995 and 2021: 2 tornado, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 2021Tornado (EFU)Blanca-Brief landspout tornado.
July 2020Flash FloodBlanca-A few county roads were washed out due to heavy rains from thunderstorms in Blanca, CO.
June 1995Tornado (F0)Blanca-Tornado with condensation funnel just off the ground. The tornado was in open country and caused no known damage.

Every storm recorded in Costilla 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
Fort Garland4.4 miles11
Garland City (historical)9.3 miles11
Russell14.5 miles17
San Acacio15.7 miles11
Viejo San Acacio16.2 miles11
San Luis17.1 miles12
Fir18.1 miles14
La Veta Pass19.7 miles21

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 BlancaAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q936294The 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 203627. 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.