BlockBefore

Big Falls, Minnesota

7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1919 and the latest in 1978. It stands in the South Koochiching unorganized territory. It lies in ZIP code area 56627. The Survey maps it on the Big Falls quadrangle. 175 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,217 feet above sea level.

Big Falls within Koochiching County

Population over time

2 figures

Big Falls fell from 236 to 175 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
2010236
2020175-61 (-26%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 7 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

25 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 25 fires within 5 miles of Big Falls between 1992 and 2017, burning about 36 acres in total. None started naturally. 4 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 burning12
Equipment and vehicle use5
Arson/incendiarism4
Missing data/not specified/undetermined3
Recreation and ceremony1

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 2006Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
6 September 2001Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
30 September 2006Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
24 September 1992Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
22 September 2015Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
2 September 2004Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
1 September 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
16 August 2010Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Koochiching County

Storms near this place

10 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Big Falls in 10 storm reports between 1994 and 2018: 6 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 lightning. 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
July 2018Thunderstorm WindBig Falls-A few trees were blown down along State Highway 6.
July 2018Thunderstorm WindBig Falls-Two trees were blown down across the road.
May 2010HailBig Falls-The hail fell for ten minutes.
June 1997LightningBig Falls-Lightning struck an electrical feeder line, causing a fire that destroyed a house. No dollar estimate was available, and no one was injured.
June 1994Thunderstorm WindBig Falls-A line of thunderstorms moved across Western Koochiching County uprooting several trees in an area one-forth mile long by 100 yards wide just to the north of Big Falls. In addition to the uprooted trees, numerous large trees were snapped at a height of six to ten feet. Damage was all facing to the northwest.
May 2008HailBig Falls-no account filed
July 2008HailBig Falls-no account filed
June 2002HailBig Falls-no account filed
August 2002HailBig Falls-no account filed
August 1999HailBig Falls-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Koochiching 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
Grand Falls0.9 miles7
Sturgeon River Landing4.5 miles7
Ben Linn Landing5.9 miles7
Hendrickson Landing7.5 miles7
Margie9.7 miles7
Wisner10.6 miles7
Lindford15.2 miles7
Gates Corner15.8 miles8

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 Big FallsAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2346762The 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 640086. 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.