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.
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
San Luis Southern Railway Trestlelisted 2004
Population over time
2 figuresBlanca 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 385 | |
| 2020 | 322 | -63 (-16%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 11 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.
- 1954 USGS Trinidad quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1955 USGS Trinidad quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Trinidad quadrangle1:250000
- 1959 USGS Trinidad quadrangle1:250000
- 1965 USGS Blanca quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
- 1983 USGS Alamosa quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1988 USGS Trinidad quadrangle1:250000
Fires near this place
19 since 1992Regional 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 ceremony | 8 |
| Smoking | 3 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 3 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2 |
| Debris and open burning | 1 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 1 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 September 1993 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Costilla County Fire Protection District | not named |
| 27 September 1993 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Costilla County Fire Protection District | not named |
| 27 September 1993 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Costilla County Fire Protection District | not named |
| 5 July 1993 | Misuse of fire by a minor | 1.0 acres | Costilla County Fire Protection District | not named |
| 4 July 1993 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | Costilla County Fire Protection District | not named |
| 27 June 1994 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Costilla County Fire Protection District | not named |
| 9 April 1993 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Costilla County Fire Protection District | not named |
| 28 April 2020 | Smoking | under an acre | Costilla County Fire Protection District | N/A |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
3 since 1995Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2021 | Tornado (EFU) | Blanca | - | Brief landspout tornado. |
| July 2020 | Flash Flood | Blanca | - | A few county roads were washed out due to heavy rains from thunderstorms in Blanca, CO. |
| June 1995 | Tornado (F0) | Blanca | - | Tornado with condensation funnel just off the ground. The tornado was in open country and caused no known damage. |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Garland | 4.4 miles | 11 | |
| Garland City (historical) | 9.3 miles | 11 | |
| Russell | 14.5 miles | 17 | |
| San Acacio | 15.7 miles | 11 | |
| Viejo San Acacio | 16.2 miles | 11 | |
| San Luis | 17.1 miles | 12 | |
| Fir | 18.1 miles | 14 | |
| La Veta Pass | 19.7 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 Blanca | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q936294 | 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 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.






