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Matlacha, Florida

12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1956 and the latest in 1981. It stands in the Pine Island census division. It lies in ZIP code area 33993. It lies near Porpoise Point Island. The Survey maps it on the Matlacha quadrangle. 598 people lived here at the 2020 count.

Matlacha within Lee County

Then and now

1956 to 1981

The same ground, surveyed 25 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Matlacha, surveyed 1981
Topographic sheet of Matlacha, surveyed 1956

Population over time

2 figures

Matlacha fell from 677 to 598 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
2010677
2020598-79 (-12%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 12 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

68 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 68 fires within 5 miles of Matlacha between 1992 and 2018, burning about 579 acres in total. 24 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
Natural24
Railroad operations and maintenance14
Missing data/not specified/undetermined9
Debris and open burning5
Misuse of fire by a minor5
Equipment and vehicle use4
Arson/incendiarism3
Power generation/transmission/distribution2
Recreation and ceremony2

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
5 September 2013Natural1.0 acresFlorida Forest ServiceCEMETERY (36)
20 August 1993Naturalunder an acreFlorida Forest Servicenot named
7 July 2005Missing data/not specified/undetermined15 acresFlorida Forest Service2005-17-0389
6 July 2014Natural20 acresFlorida Forest ServiceTHREE BRUSH (36)
6 July 2014Naturalunder an acreFlorida Forest ServiceSADDLEWOOD (36)
6 July 1995Equipment and vehicle use20 acresFlorida Forest Servicenot named
30 July 2011Natural3.0 acresFlorida Forest ServiceREHAB (36)
27 July 2007Debris and open burningunder an acreFlorida Forest Service36/TWO PILES BURNING FIRE

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Lee County

Storms near this place

6 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Matlacha in 6 storm reports between 2001 and 2024: 4 tornado, 2 flood. The reports record 3 injuries. 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
January 2016Tornado (EF2)Matlacha3 hurt, $2,000,000NWS Storm Survey revealed EF-2 tornado damage in the western sections of Cape Coral. The tornado damaged 178 structures in total. One home was completely destroyed while 14 sustained major damage and another 163 sustained minor damage. The minor damage mainly consisted of roof damage and destroyed pool cages. Over 100 power poles were knocked down along the tornado's path along with many trees. The tornado injured three people while it was on the ground for about 7 minutes.
October 2024Tornado (EF1)Matlacha$50,000A waterspout moved over the Matlacha area, causing roof and siding damage to several homes along the track. The worst of the damage was to two homes, one where half of the roof was ripped off, and the other was a mobile home that had half the roof ripped off and walls collapse under it. The tornado moved back over the water and dissipated. Maximum estimated winds were 105 mph.
July 2021FloodMatlacha$15,000Law enforcement reported multiple road closures in Cape Coral due to flooding.
September 2001Tornado (F0)Matlacha$10,000A weak F0 tornado sporadically touched down along a narrow path and downed a few trees, large branches and power lines, from near Matlacha, north to near the Burnt Store Marina, over rural northwest Lee county, before it lifted a dissipated.
September 2001Tornado (F0)Matlacha$10,000A weak F0 tornado sporadically touched down along a narrow path, from near Matlacha, north to the Lee - Charlotte county line, near the Burnt Store Marina. The weak tornado continued to sporadically touch down as it moved north and crossed into Charlotte county.
June 2023FloodMatlacha-Images relayed via broadcast media from social media show high water in multiple neighborhoods near Chiquita Blvd in Cape Coral.

Every storm recorded in Lee 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
Matlacha Isles0.6 miles12
Matlacha Shores1.3 miles12
Pine Island Center2.7 miles14
Flamingo Bay4.4 miles14
Pineland4.9 miles14
Caloosahatchee (historical)5.6 miles15
Bokeelia7.0 miles14
Cape Coral7.9 miles15

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 MatlachaAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2570474The 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 286522. 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.