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Rock Creek, Minnesota

12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Rock Creek City. It lies in ZIP code area 55069. The Survey maps it on the Pine City quadrangle. 1,682 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 938 feet above sea level.

Rock Creek within Pine County

Population over time

2 figures

Rock Creek grew from 1,628 to 1,682 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
20101,628
20201,682+54 (+3%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

8 surveys from 12 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

147 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 147 fires within 5 miles of Rock Creek between 1993 and 2020, burning about 397 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 13 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 burning49
Equipment and vehicle use33
Railroad operations and maintenance19
Missing data/not specified/undetermined15
Arson/incendiarism13
Recreation and ceremony7
Smoking6
Fireworks2
Other causes1
Natural1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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
5 September 2000Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
5 September 2000Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
5 September 2000Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
5 September 2000Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
5 September 2000Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
29 September 2000Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
26 September 2006Arson/incendiarismunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
19 September 2012Equipment and vehicle use3.5 acresMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Pine County

Storms near this place

20 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Rock Creek in 20 storm reports between 1998 and 2023: 11 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 2 flash flood. The reports record 2 injuries. 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
June 2010Tornado (EF2)Rock Creek2 hurt, $283,000The severe storm that produced the tornado tracked northeast along the Saint Croix River Valley on the Minnesota-Wisconsin state border. Although the tornado crossed through mostly recreational land, residents between Rush City and Rock Creek in MN, as well as Grantsburg to Yellow Lake in WI were impacted. The maximum path width was a quarter mile, or 400 yards, with an average path width of 400 to 600 ft. The tornado exited Pine County at around 1955 CST, continuing on in Burnett County, WI, where it lifted at 2001 CST, about 3.5 miles northwest of Grantsburg, WI. The total path length was about 6.5 miles. ||The worst of the damage occurred in far southeast Pine County and was evidence of a strong EF2 tornado with estimated winds of 110-135 mph. This rating was based on the total destruction of a strapped down mobile home and the extensive uprooting/snapping of trees where the tornado crossed Minnesota State Highway 70. Two people in a mobile home were injured. Multiple homes sustained significant damage.
August 2023Thunderstorm WindRock Creek-A tree six to eight inches in diameter fell during the storm and crushed a canvas tent.
June 2022Thunderstorm WindRock Creek-A large aspen tree was downed across a road.
July 2019Thunderstorm WindRock Creek-A 14-inch tree fell due to the winds and damaged a garage, vehicle and a light pole.
July 2019HailRock Creek-Hail stones punched through a steel garage roof and sheetrock ceiling and damaged a vehicle.
July 2019HailRock Creek-Golf ball to tennis ball-sized hail broke windows on the north side of a home.
July 2019Thunderstorm WindRock Creek-Numerous trees were downed with one falling through a trailer roof.
July 2018Flash FloodRock Creek-Water was over multiple roads in the Rock Creek area.
September 2013Thunderstorm WindRock Creek-Numerous Aspen tree branches were blown down. A twelve inch diameter Poplar tree was snapped 20 feet above the ground level.
August 2010Flash FloodRock Creek-Water was flowing over State Highway 70, about 3 miles east of Interstate 35.
June 2005Tornado (F0)Rock Creek-The tornado began in Chisago County and traveled into Pine County, crossing Highway 70. It traveled over rural areas, causing damage to trees. The tornado did not affect any structures.
May 2022HailRock Creek-no account filed
May 2022HailRock Creek-no account filed
May 2022HailRock Creek-no account filed
June 2022HailRock Creek-no account filed
July 2019HailRock Creek-no account filed
June 2013HailRock Creek-no account filed
July 2003HailRock Creek-no account filed
June 2001HailRock Creek-no account filed
September 1998HailRock Creek-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Pine 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
Pine City4.7 miles12
Greely5.7 miles12
Beroun10.5 miles13
Henriette11.4 miles13
Brook Park14.5 miles12
Mission Creek14.7 miles13
Hinckley17.5 miles8
Evergreen Park17.5 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 Rock CreekAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2228069The 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 650185. 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.