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Payne Gap, Kentucky

18 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1890 and the latest in 1992. It stands in the Jenkins census division. It lies in ZIP code area 41537. It stands on Buck Branch. The Survey maps it on the Jenkins West quadrangle. 347 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,762 feet above sea level.

Payne Gap within Letcher County

Population over time

2 figures

Payne Gap grew from 329 to 347 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
2010329
2020347+18 (+5%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

10 surveys from 18 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

191 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 191 fires within 5 miles of Payne Gap between 1995 and 2020, burning about 8,764 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 41 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 burning76
Missing data/not specified/undetermined43
Arson/incendiarism41
Recreation and ceremony24
Misuse of fire by a minor3
Power generation/transmission/distribution2
Smoking1
Natural1

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 2007Debris and open burning65 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
8 September 2007Debris and open burning40 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
7 September 2007Debris and open burning10 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
29 September 2019Arson/incendiarism5.0 acresKentucky Division of ForestryJOE'S BR #2
28 September 2019Arson/incendiarism4.0 acresKentucky Division of ForestryJOE'S BR.
27 September 2007Recreation and ceremony132 acresGeorge Washington & Jefferson National ForestsTUCKER GAP
26 September 1999Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreGeorge Washington & Jefferson National ForestsLAUREL FORK
23 September 2005Missing data/not specified/undetermined10 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Letcher County

Mines and quarries near this place

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Payne Gap: 2 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Number 1 MineStone, Crushed/BrokenPast ProducerSedimentary
Number 1 MineStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer

Every working recorded in Letcher County

Storms near this place

1 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Payne Gap in 1 storm report in 2018: 1 hail. 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 2018HailPayne Gap-A citizen reported penny sized hail near Payne Gap via social media.

Every storm recorded in Letcher 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
Jenkins2.0 miles18
Potters Fork2.0 miles18
Haymond2.3 miles18
Dunham2.5 miles18
Cromona2.9 miles18
Tolliver Town3.1 miles18
Gaskill3.3 miles19
Neon Junction3.3 miles18

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 Payne GapAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q6067703The 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 500292. 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.