Forada, Minnesota
10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Hudson Township. It lies in ZIP code area 56308. The Survey maps it on the Forada quadrangle. 170 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,417 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresForada fell from 185 to 170 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 | 185 | |
| 2020 | 170 | -15 (-8%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 10 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.
- 1953 USGS Saint Cloud quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Saint Cloud quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Saint Cloud quadrangle1:250000
- 1966 USGS Forada quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
- 1986 USGS Lake Minnewaska quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
23 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 23 fires within 5 miles of Forada between 1992 and 2015, burning about 173 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 burning | 12 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 4 |
| Smoking | 3 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 2 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 September 1992 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 10 August 2006 | Smoking | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 6 May 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 14 acres | Fergus Falls Wetland Management District | HUDSON |
| 1 May 1999 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 6 April 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 12 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 28 April 1998 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 24 April 1999 | Debris and open burning | 10 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 24 April 1999 | Debris and open burning | 30 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
13 since 1998Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Forada in 13 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 8 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 1 funnel cloud, 1 tornado. 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 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forada | $15,000 | Several trees and power lines were blown down near Hudson Township. |
| August 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forada | $2,000 | An outbuilding was destroyed along with trees blown down near Alexandria. |
| June 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forada | - | Thunderstorm winds estimated at 65 mph downed several trees, including one on a farm building south of Alexandria. |
| May 2022 | Tornado (EF2) | Forada | - | A tornado entered Douglas County from Pope County, just east of Lake Reno. It immediately demolished a garage and broke many hundreds of trees before hitting an area of homes along the east side of Maple Lake in the city of Forada. Dozens of homes had roofs torn off, garages and sheds destroyed. It threw a car several hundred feet. The tornado tore part of the roof off from the fire station. It continued beyond Forada and hit numerous farmsteads before hitting the west side of the city of Nelson, where a farm lost most outbuildings and a home lost its roof. The tornado continued moving northeast, hitting more farms, before dissipating several miles east of Carlos. Maximum winds were estimated to be 120 mph. |
| July 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forada | - | A pontoon boat was thrown and flipped over on Maple Lake. |
| August 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forada | - | A 68 mph wind gust was measured at the Minnesota Department of Transportation Wind Sensor along Interstate 94, southeast of Alexandria. |
| July 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forada | - | Trees blown down. Estimated windspeed. |
| July 2024 | Hail | Forada | - | no account filed |
| July 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forada | - | no account filed |
| July 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forada | - | no account filed |
| August 2006 | Hail | Forada | - | no account filed |
| June 2001 | Funnel Cloud | Forada | - | no account filed |
| June 1999 | Hail | Forada | - | 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.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexandria | 6.5 miles | 9 | |
| Hiview Park | 7.8 miles | 11 | |
| Nelson | 8.3 miles | 11 | |
| Holmes City | 10.2 miles | 8 | |
| Osakis | 11.9 miles | 9 | |
| Garfield | 12.5 miles | 9 | |
| Carlos | 12.9 miles | 11 | |
| Belle River | 15.3 miles | 9 |
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 Forada | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1926801 | 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 643791. 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.




