BlockBefore

DeSoto, Georgia

9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1981. It stands in the Leslie-De Soto census division. It lies in ZIP code area 31743. The Survey maps it on the Leslie quadrangle. 124 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 308 feet above sea level.

DeSoto within Sumter County

Population over time

3 figures

DeSoto fell from 214 to 124 between 2000 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
2000214
2010195-19 (-9%)
2020124-71 (-36%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 9 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

143 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 143 fires within 5 miles of DeSoto between 1992 and 2020, burning about 719 acres in total. 5 started naturally. 11 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 burning88
Equipment and vehicle use17
Arson/incendiarism11
Misuse of fire by a minor8
Recreation and ceremony6
Smoking6
Natural5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2

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
9 September 2010Debris and open burning1.6 acresGeorgia Forestry CommissionFY2011-SUMTER-011
6 September 2019Debris and open burning1.5 acresGeorgia Forestry CommissionFY2020SUMTER012
5 September 2012Debris and open burningunder an acreGeorgia Forestry CommissionFY2013-SUMTER-016
5 September 1999Equipment and vehicle use18 acresGeorgia Forestry Commissionnot named
3 September 2002Debris and open burningunder an acreGeorgia Forestry CommissionFY2003-SUMTER-008
24 September 1996Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreGeorgia Forestry Commissionnot named
23 September 1996Debris and open burningunder an acreGeorgia Forestry Commissionnot named
20 September 2005Equipment and vehicle use1.2 acresGeorgia Forestry Commissionnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Sumter County

Storms near this place

6 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names DeSoto in 6 storm reports between 1998 and 2008: 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 1 hail. The reports record 22 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
September 1998Tornado (F1)Desoto12 hurt, $200,000Low topped convection caused an apparent tornado in the Railroad Street area of DeSoto. Newspaper reports and sight survey by an NWS employee indicated at least 1 permanent structure home and 7 mobile homes were destroyed. Other homes were damaged by some of the hundreds of trees that fell. Several businesses were also damaged.
September 1998Tornado (F1)Desoto10 hurt, $200,000Sight survey by an NWS employee and a newspaper report indicated a permanent structure home and several mobile or modular homes were destroyed in the Ferguson Road area. Debris was scattered several hundred feet.
August 2002Thunderstorm WindDesoto$3,000The Sumter county 911 center reported that trees and power lines were down in Americus and trees were down in both Leslie and Desoto.
February 2008Thunderstorm WindDesoto$2,000The Americus Times Recorder reported that numerous trees and power lines were down in the eastern part of the county across DeSoto Seed Farm Road, Foster Ball Road, and at the intersection of Georgia Highways 27 and 195.
August 1999Thunderstorm WindDesoto$500Sumter county 911 reported several trees blown down.
August 2002HailDesoto-The Sumter county 911 center reported dime to nickel size hail in Americus, Desoto, and Leslie.

Every storm recorded in Sumter 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
Leslie1.3 miles9
Parkers (historical)3.1 miles9
Cobb3.9 miles8
Lamar4.2 miles8
Huntington5.3 miles8
Flintside5.7 miles8
Corinth (historical)6.9 miles8
Gatewood7.6 miles8

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 DeSotoAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2526831The 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 355464. 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.