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Alturas, Florida

15 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1955 and the latest in 1988. It stands in the Bartow census division. It lies in ZIP code area 33830. It lies near Mule Island. The Survey maps it on the Alturas quadrangle. 4,084 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 174 feet above sea level.

Alturas within Polk County

Then and now

1955 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 33 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Alturas, surveyed 1988
Topographic sheet of Alturas, surveyed 1955

Population over time

2 figures

Alturas fell from 4,185 to 4,084 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
20104,185
20204,084-101 (-2%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 15 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

181 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 181 fires within 5 miles of Alturas between 1992 and 2020, burning about 2,424 acres in total. 11 started naturally. 16 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
Debris and open burning52
Railroad operations and maintenance34
Missing data/not specified/undetermined30
Equipment and vehicle use27
Arson/incendiarism16
Natural11
Recreation and ceremony4
Misuse of fire by a minor2
Other causes2
Smoking2
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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
17 September 1992Railroad operations and maintenance17 acresFlorida Forest Servicenot named
10 September 1999Natural5.0 acresFlorida Forest Servicenot named
1 September 2015Arson/incendiarism5.0 acresFlorida Forest ServiceFRUITVILLE AVE. (53)
4 August 1994Naturalunder an acreFlorida Forest Servicenot named
30 August 1998Equipment and vehicle use25 acresFlorida Forest Servicenot named
25 August 1997Debris and open burning3.0 acresFlorida Forest Servicenot named
10 August 2007Debris and open burning1.0 acresFlorida Forest Service53 REYNOLDS
9 July 2000Natural5.0 acresFlorida Forest Servicenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Polk County

Mines and quarries near this place

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Alturas: 2 prospects. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Diatomite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Unnamed Diatomite DepositDiatomiteProspect
Unnamed Diatomite ProspectDiatomiteProspect

Every working recorded in Polk County

Storms near this place

2 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Alturas in 2 storm reports between 1993 and 2008: 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail. 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
March 1993Thunderstorm WindAlturas$500,000Strong winds blew roofs off several houses and destroyed carports.
July 2008HailAlturas-Quarter size hail was reported in Alturas.

Every storm recorded in Polk 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
Cox Corner2.5 miles17
Lake Garfield2.8 miles17
Roux Quarters3.4 miles17
West Lake Wales3.9 miles17
Connersville4.6 miles17
West Scenic Park5.1 miles17
Floritan5.3 miles20
Wahneta5.6 miles17

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 AlturasAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q5671195The 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 277828. 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.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

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.