Free Soil, Michigan
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1931 and the latest in 1987. It stands in Free Soil Township. It lies in ZIP code area 49411. It stands on Ritters Creek. The Survey maps it on the Free Soil quadrangle. 158 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 686 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresFree Soil grew from 144 to 158 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 | 144 | |
| 2020 | 158 | +14 (+10%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 9 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.
- 1931 USGS Freesoil SW quadrangle1:31680
- 1954 USGS Manitowoc quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Freesoil quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
- 1958 USGS Manitowoc quadrangle1:250000
- 1983 USGS Manistee quadrangle1:100000
- 1987 USGS Freesoil quadrangle1:24000
Fires near this place
48 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 48 fires within 5 miles of Free Soil between 1992 and 2020, burning about 134 acres in total. 5 started naturally. 3 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 burning | 17 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 11 |
| Natural | 5 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 4 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 3 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 3 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 1 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 1 |
| Other causes | 1 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 1 |
| Smoking | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 September 2012 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Huron-Manistee National Forest | TUTTLE RD |
| 24 September 2013 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Huron-Manistee National Forest | TRASH PILE |
| 1 August 2019 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | FOUNTAIN AREA FD 0078745 - 2019 |
| 31 July 2019 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | FOUNTAIN AREA FD 0078362 - 2019 |
| 30 July 2015 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | Huron-Manistee National Forest | RUSTY |
| 3 July 1994 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 20 acres | Huron-Manistee National Forest | FIRECRACKER |
| 29 July 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5.0 acres | Huron-Manistee National Forest | HASENBANK |
| 25 July 2019 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Huron-Manistee National Forest | FREESOIL |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fountain | 4.6 miles | 9 | |
| Sugar Grove | 7.8 miles | 9 | |
| Batcheller | 8.4 miles | 9 | |
| Millerton | 10.0 miles | 10 | |
| Tallman | 10.1 miles | 11 | |
| Custer | 10.7 miles | 11 | |
| Scottville | 11.0 miles | 10 | |
| Amber | 11.8 miles | 10 |
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 Free Soil | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2179734 | 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 1617399. 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.





