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Willow River, Minnesota

7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1981. It stands in Willow River City. It lies in ZIP code area 55795. It stands on Willow River. The Survey maps it on the Willow River quadrangle. 384 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,040 feet above sea level.

Willow River within Pine County

On record in Willow River

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 2 records

Population over time

13 figures

Willow River fell from 466 to 384 between 1900 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
1900466
1910212-254 (-55%)
1920247+35 (+17%)
1930253+6 (+2%)
1940314+61 (+24%)
1950294-20 (-6%)
1960343+49 (+17%)
1970331-12 (-3%)
1980303-28 (-8%)
1990284-19 (-6%)
2000309+25 (+9%)
2010415+106 (+34%)
2020384-31 (-7%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 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

190 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 190 fires within 5 miles of Willow River between 1993 and 2020, burning about 311 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 25 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 burning84
Equipment and vehicle use36
Missing data/not specified/undetermined29
Arson/incendiarism25
Recreation and ceremony7
Smoking7
Misuse of fire by a minor1
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
7 September 2006Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
22 September 1998Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
21 September 1998Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
13 September 2011Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
13 September 2011Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
1 September 1998Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
31 August 1998Arson/incendiarismunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
30 August 1999Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Pine County

Storms near this place

15 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Willow River in 15 storm reports between 1995 and 2023: 7 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail, 2 flash flood. 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
May 2018Flash FloodWillow River-Water was reported over County Highway 41 near Willow River by local law enforcement.
June 2016Thunderstorm WindWillow River-A 3 to 4 diameter tree was snapped off.
June 2016Thunderstorm WindWillow River-Thirty to 40 trees were blown down around town. Most were uprooted, but some were broken about 15 to 20 feet above the ground.
July 2016Thunderstorm WindWillow River-A few trees were blown down in the Willow River Campground area.
August 2014Thunderstorm WindWillow River-Large pine trees, about 12 inches in diameter, were blown down.
May 2012Flash FloodWillow River-Scotch Pine Road was washed out for 1000 yards at Highway 41.
August 2000Thunderstorm WindWillow River-Trees were blown down from Willow River to Sturgeon Lake. Wind speed is estimated.
July 1995Thunderstorm WindWillow River-Strong thunderstorm winds blew down many large trees and power lines across Carlton and Pine Counties. Two trees fell on a mobile home in Moose Lake.
July 2023HailWillow River-no account filed
July 2023HailWillow River-no account filed
July 2023HailWillow River-no account filed
June 2018HailWillow River-no account filed
August 2014HailWillow River-no account filed
May 2010HailWillow River-no account filed
May 1998Thunderstorm WindWillow River-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
Rutledge4.0 miles7
Sturgeon Lake4.4 miles7
Denham6.2 miles7
Finlayson9.0 miles7
Ellson9.0 miles6
Askov9.6 miles7
Bruno9.8 miles7
Banning10.9 miles7

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 Willow RiverAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1815091The 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 654204. 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.