Bear Dance, Montana
8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1920 and the latest in 1994. It stands in the Woods Bay-Rollins census division. It lies in ZIP code area 59911. It stands on Henry Creek. The Survey maps it on the Woods Bay quadrangle. 281 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 3,107 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresBear Dance grew from 275 to 281 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 | 275 | |
| 2020 | 281 | +6 (+2%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 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.
- 1920 USGS Flathead Lake quadrangle1:125000
- 1956 USGS Wallace quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1960 USGS Wallace quadrangle1:250000
- 1964 USGS Woods Bay quadrangle1:24000
- 1980 USGS Polson quadrangle1:100000
- 1994 USGS Woods Bay quadrangle1:24000
Fires near this place
46 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 46 fires within 5 miles of Bear Dance between 1994 and 2020, burning about 72 acres in total. 22 started naturally. 1 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 |
|---|---|
| Natural | 22 |
| Debris and open burning | 9 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 3 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 2 |
| Smoking | 2 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 1 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 1 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 September 2016 | Natural | under an acre | Flathead National Forest | CRANE CREEK |
| 6 September 2009 | Natural | under an acre | Flathead National Forest | GLEN CREEK |
| 3 September 2020 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Flathead National Forest | CHERRY TREE |
| 21 September 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Flathead National Forest | BEARDANCE |
| 2 September 2007 | Natural | under an acre | Flathead National Forest | HENRY CREEK |
| 19 September 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Flathead National Forest | CRANE MOUNTAIN |
| 19 September 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Flathead National Forest | CRANE CREEK |
| 10 September 2007 | Natural | under an acre | Flathead National Forest | NOSEEUM |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Woods Bay | 6.0 miles | 12 | |
| Idlewise Court | 7.6 miles | 12 | |
| Rollins | 9.0 miles | 8 | |
| Ferndale | 9.4 miles | 12 | |
| Swan Lake | 9.8 miles | 10 | |
| Allard (historical) | 11.6 miles | 9 | |
| Kings Point | 12.1 miles | 7 | |
| Finley Point | 12.5 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 Bear Dance | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q6394951 | 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 1796932. 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.





