Fertile, Minnesota
8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1952 and the latest in 1984. It stands in Fertile City. It lies in ZIP code area 56540. The Survey maps it on the Fertile quadrangle. 804 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,138 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresFertile fell from 842 to 804 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 | 842 | |
| 2020 | 804 | -38 (-5%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 8 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.
- 1952 USGS Grand Forks quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1956 USGS Grand Forks quadrangle1:250000
- 1965 USGS Fertile quadrangle1:24000
- 1966 USGS Grand Forks quadrangle1:250000
- 1984 USGS Crookston quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
1 since 2014Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Fertile in 2014, burning under an acre in total. None 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 |
|---|---|
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 October 2014 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Detroit Lakes Wetland Management District | GREEN |
Storms near this place
25 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fertile in 25 storm reports between 1996 and 2023: 16 hail, 4 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 2 funnel cloud. 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Fertile | $30,000 | Trees were uprooted by the strong wind and windows were broken. The roof on a trucking garage also blew off. |
| August 2016 | Flash Flood | Fertile | $500 | Over five inches of rain fell in less than two hours across southern Garfield and Liberty townships. Area farm fields, farm access roads, and streets in Fertile were flooded. |
| May 2023 | Hail | Fertile | - | Report relayed via Twitter with a picture showing a handful of quarter-sized hail and the approximate time. |
| July 2019 | Thunderstorm Wind | Fertile | - | A few large tree branches were blown down across town. |
| June 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Fertile | - | Several 4 to 6 inch diameter tree branches were blown down. |
| August 2016 | Hail | Fertile | - | Very large hail covered the ground. |
| August 2016 | Thunderstorm Wind | Fertile | - | Strong winds were reported. |
| June 2014 | Funnel Cloud | Fertile | - | A persistent wall cloud with small funnel was observed. |
| June 2005 | Tornado (F0) | Fertile | - | A brief tornado touchdown was reported east of Fertile. |
| June 2018 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| August 2016 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| August 2016 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| July 2008 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| August 2007 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| June 2005 | Funnel Cloud | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| June 2003 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| August 2002 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| August 2001 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| July 1998 | Tornado (F0) | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| May 1996 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
| July 1996 | Hail | Fertile | - | no account filed |
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.
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 Fertile | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2138597 | 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 643615. 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.




