Aral, Michigan

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1998. It stands in Lake Township. It lies in ZIP code area 49640. It stands on Otter Creek. The Survey maps it on the Empire quadrangle. The federal gazetteer marks this settlement historical: it is no longer a populated place, though the surveys that recorded it still are.

Aral within Benzie County

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 10 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.

1954 USGS Manitowoc quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1957 USGS Empire quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
1958 USGS Manitowoc quadrangle1:250000
1983 USGS Empire quadrangle1:25000, 2 printings
1984 USGS Crystal Lake quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
1998 USGS Empire quadrangle1:24000

Fires near this place

21 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 21 fires within 5 miles of Aral (historical) between 1995 and 2020, burning about 42 acres in total. 3 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	8
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Recreation and ceremony	3
Natural	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Smoking	1
Debris and open burning	1

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
15 August 2001	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore	MARK
29 July 1995	Natural	under an acre	Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore	JACKPINE
15 July 2018	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore	LASSO ROAD
11 July 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	not named
25 June 1998	Natural	1.0 acres	Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore	POLE
23 June 1995	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore	MUD LAKE
19 June 2013	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore	EMPIRE BLUFF
10 June 2020	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore	EMPIRE HILL POWER LINE FIRE

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Benzie 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Edgewater	4.1 miles	10
Averytown (historical)	6.5 miles	10
Honor	7.4 miles	10
Chimney Corners Resort	8.6 miles	11
Beulah	9.0 miles	10
Oberlin (historical)	9.1 miles	11
Benzonia	9.8 miles	11
Platte River	10.2 miles	15

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1951744. 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.