BlockBefore

Placid Lakes, Florida

13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1988. It stands in the Lake Placid census division. It lies in ZIP code area 33852. The Survey maps it on the Venus NW quadrangle. 3,054 people lived here at the 2000 count. It stands 128 feet above sea level.

Placid Lakes within Highlands County

Then and now

1953 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 35 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Placid Lakes, surveyed 1988
Topographic sheet of Placid Lakes, surveyed 1953

Compare 1953 against another survey:

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 13 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

292 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 292 fires within 5 miles of Placid Lakes between 1992 and 2020, burning about 3,150 acres in total. 51 started naturally. 55 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
Railroad operations and maintenance60
Arson/incendiarism55
Natural51
Debris and open burning41
Missing data/not specified/undetermined20
Equipment and vehicle use18
Misuse of fire by a minor14
Recreation and ceremony14
Power generation/transmission/distribution10
Smoking8
Fireworks1

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
27 September 1993Naturalunder an acreFlorida Forest Servicenot named
26 September 1993Natural2.8 acresFlorida Forest Servicenot named
21 September 2011Debris and open burning2.0 acresFlorida Forest ServiceDASHER (28)
21 September 1996Naturalunder an acreFlorida Forest Servicenot named
20 September 2006Debris and open burningunder an acreFlorida Forest Service956
20 September 2003Naturalunder an acreFlorida Forest Service1285-HI CO-FIRE-HWY 70W
17 September 2005Debris and open burning3.5 acresFlorida Forest ServiceHI-HUMMER FIRE-1193
14 September 2005Debris and open burningunder an acreFlorida Forest ServiceHI-LAKE MIRROR FIRE & NOV-1180

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Highlands County

Storms near this place

1 since 2012

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Placid Lakes in 1 storm report in 2012: 1 tornado. 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 2012Tornado (EF1)Placid Lakes$60,000Public video shows a tornado hitting power lines and kicking up debris. The 600 block of Lake June Road on the north side of the lake had damaged homes.

Every storm recorded in Highlands 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
Childs4.0 miles13
Lake Placid4.3 miles14
Bairs Den4.7 miles13
Archbold5.1 miles13
Parker Island5.8 miles13
Hen Scratch5.9 miles13
Sylvan Shores6.3 miles14
Highlands Park Estates6.6 miles14

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 Placid LakesAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1819857The 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 1867188. 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.