Rake, Iowa
7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Lincoln Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50465. The Survey maps it on the Buffalo Center quadrangle. 186 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,158 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresRake fell from 225 to 186 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 | 225 | |
| 2020 | 186 | -39 (-17%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 7 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 Mason City quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Mason City quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Mason City quadrangle1:250000
- 1972 USGS Buffalo Center quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Mason City quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
5 since 2006Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Rake between 2006 and 2020, burning about 21 acres in total. None started naturally. None was 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 |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 September 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 6.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | SOUTH OF 1409 470TH ST., IA |
| 28 July 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 24 June 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 7 October 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | 44836 30TH AVE BUFFALO CENTER, IA |
| 30 October 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 13 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
1 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Rake: 1 unknown. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unknown | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Unknown |
Storms near this place
14 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Rake in 14 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 5 hail, 4 thunderstorm wind, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 1995 | Thunderstorm Wind | Rake | $30,000 | no account filed |
| July 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Rake | $20,000 | County dispatch reported trees and power lines down. This is a delayed report and times is estimated from radar. |
| August 2007 | Flash Flood | Rake | $20,000 | Water was reported over Highway 9 in town. |
| June 2010 | Hail | Rake | $10,000 | no account filed |
| October 2005 | Hail | Rake | $3,000 | no account filed |
| March 2017 | Hail | Rake | $1,000 | Local Fire Department reported nearly golf ball sized hail. |
| April 2025 | Hail | Rake | - | Delayed report relayed by broadcast media. |
| July 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Rake | - | Public reported large limbs, 3 to 4 inches in diameter, down at farmsteads between 60th and 90th avenues on 490th St. This is a delayed report. |
| June 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Rake | - | Large limbs down along with power lines in Rake. |
| June 2011 | Tornado (EF0) | Rake | - | Tornado/landspout touched down in an open field and drifted very slowly. No damage occurred as it remained in open country. |
| June 2010 | Tornado (EF0) | Rake | - | A cone tornado was on the ground briefly east of Rake. |
| May 2008 | Heavy Rain | Rake | - | One half inch of rain fell in 15 minutes. |
| May 2017 | Hail | Rake | - | no account filed |
| June 2011 | Funnel Cloud | Rake | - | no account filed |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amund (historical) | 6.7 miles | 7 | |
| Buffalo Center | 6.9 miles | 7 | |
| Thompson | 10.9 miles | 7 | |
| Vinje | 12.8 miles | 7 | |
| Scarville | 16.0 miles | 7 | |
| Leland | 18.1 miles | 7 | |
| Lake Mills | 20.9 miles | 7 | |
| Forest City | 21.4 miles | 7 |
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 Rake | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1926626 | 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 460510. 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.




