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Buffalo, Kansas

22 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Clifton Township. It lies in ZIP code area 66717. It stands on Bloody Run. The Survey maps it on the Buffalo quadrangle. 217 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 935 feet above sea level.

Buffalo within Wilson County

Population over time

2 figures

Buffalo fell from 232 to 217 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
2010232
2020217-15 (-6%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

13 surveys from 22 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

15 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 15 fires within 5 miles of Buffalo between 2015 and 2018, burning about 259 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/undetermined9
Debris and open burning4
Smoking1
Equipment and vehicle use1

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 July 2015Equipment and vehicle use6.0 acresKansas Forest Service2015044
9 June 2017Debris and open burning1.0 acresWilson County2017029
7 April 2015Debris and open burning100 acresKansas Forest Service2015040
29 March 2015Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresKansas Forest Service2015038
29 March 2015Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresKansas Forest Service18
16 March 2015Missing data/not specified/undetermined20 acresKansas Forest Service17
16 March 2015Missing data/not specified/undetermined45 acresKansas Forest Service2015030
16 March 2015Missing data/not specified/undetermined20 acresKansas Forest Service2015031

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Wilson County

Storms near this place

24 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Buffalo in 24 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 12 hail, 11 thunderstorm wind, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 1993Thunderstorm WindBuffalo$5,000A line of thunderstorms packing winds in excess of 70 miles an hour crossed south-central Kansas. The winds caused widespread damage to trees and power lines and scattered structural damage to outbuildings and homes. The winds hit that section of south-central Kansas east of Wellington to Wichita to El Dorado. They finally settled down by the time the storms had moved east to an Iola to Chanute to Coffeyville line. Other significant damage included outbuildings destroyed at two locations southeast of Wellington and west of Moline.
April 2006Thunderstorm WindBuffalo$2,500The porch to a house was damaged by severe straight line winds.
May 2019Flash FloodBuffalo$100Water was reported flowing over Highway 39 from Udall Road to Wichita Road. Rainfall amounts were reported to be 3.5 to 4 inches.
July 2025Thunderstorm WindBuffalo-Several tree limbs were knocked down.
July 2025HailBuffalo-This was a measured hail stone in Buffalo. Golf ball sized hail was reported about a mile west of town as well.
March 2021Thunderstorm WindBuffalo-This was an estimated gust.
June 2018Thunderstorm WindBuffalo-Trees were reported down across town. This was a delayed report.
April 2014HailBuffalo-There were lots of pea sized hail but some were the size of nickels.
June 2013Thunderstorm WindBuffalo-Large trees were downed and one was blown into a house.
April 2008HailBuffalo-Pea to penny size hail occurred.
May 2024HailBuffalo-no account filed
February 2017HailBuffalo-no account filed
May 2006HailBuffalo-no account filed
August 2006Thunderstorm WindBuffalo-no account filed
August 2006HailBuffalo-no account filed
July 2006Thunderstorm WindBuffalo-no account filed
July 2006HailBuffalo-no account filed
June 2004HailBuffalo-no account filed
August 2003Thunderstorm WindBuffalo-no account filed
June 2002Thunderstorm WindBuffalo-no account filed
June 2002Thunderstorm WindBuffalo-no account filed
June 1999HailBuffalo-no account filed
September 1998HailBuffalo-no account filed
September 1998HailBuffalo-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Wilson 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
Roper3.8 miles22
Rest4.4 miles22
South Ridge (historical)5.4 miles21
Benedict6.5 miles24
Vilas7.0 miles21
Middletown7.2 miles24
Guilford7.7 miles23
Benedict Junction7.9 miles24

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 BuffaloAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2548074The 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 474927. 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.