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Portage, Michigan

15 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1922 and the latest in 1982. It stands in Portage City. It lies in ZIP code area 49002. The Survey maps it on the Portage quadrangle. 48,891 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 879 feet above sea level.

Portage within Kalamazoo County

Population over time

2 figures

Portage grew from 46,292 to 48,891 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
201046,292
202048,891+2,599 (+6%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 15 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

31 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 31 fires within 5 miles of Portage between 2018 and 2020, burning about 31 acres in total. 1 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/undetermined24
Equipment and vehicle use5
Recreation and ceremony1
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
17 September 2018Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesPORTAGE FD 0004039 - 2018
2 August 2019Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesCOMSTOCK TWP FIRE/RESCUE 0001310 - 2019
2 August 2019Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesKALAMAZOO DPS 0006279 - 2019
12 August 2019Recreation and ceremony1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesPAVILION TOWNSHIP FD 0000273 - 2019
6 July 2018Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesKALAMAZOO DPS 0054887 - 2018
30 July 2019Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesPORTAGE FD 0002877 - 2019
28 July 2018Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesPORTAGE FD 0003242 - 2018
13 July 2018Natural1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesPAVILION TOWNSHIP FD 0000238 - 2018

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Kalamazoo County

Storms near this place

12 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Portage in 12 storm reports between 1997 and 2019: 8 thunderstorm wind, 4 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
April 1997Thunderstorm WindPortage$250,000no account filed
July 2006Thunderstorm WindPortage$50,000Many trees were blown down in Portage and Kalamazoo.
May 2019Thunderstorm WindPortage$25,000Several power poles and trees were blown down.
August 2003Thunderstorm WindPortage$10,000A 69 m.p.h. wind gust was recorded in Portage.
June 2001Thunderstorm WindPortage$10,000no account filed
June 2006HailPortage$5,000Three quarters inch hail was reported three miles south of Portage.
June 2006HailPortage$5,000Three quarters inch hail was reported in Portage.
July 2004HailPortage$5,000The broadcast media reported a severe thunderstorm produced three quarters inch diameter hail two miles southeast of Portage.
May 1997Thunderstorm WindPortage$1,000Kalamazoo HAM radio personnel reported six inch diameter trees were blown down in Portage.
June 1998Thunderstorm WindPortage$500A tree was downed in Portage at 12:45 am EDT, Friday, June 26th.
October 2007HailPortage-no account filed
July 1998Thunderstorm WindPortage-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Kalamazoo 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
Ramona Park2.2 miles15
Milwood4.1 miles20
Oakwood4.4 miles20
Pavillion Center5.2 miles14
Collins Corner5.2 miles14
Pomeroy5.2 miles14
Lemon Park5.5 miles14
Texas Corners5.7 miles15

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 PortageAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1022946The 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 635269. 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.