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Birney, Montana

7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1980. It stands in the Ashland census division. It lies in ZIP code area 59012. It stands on Hanging Woman Creek. The Survey maps it on the Birney quadrangle. 97 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 3,123 feet above sea level.

Birney within Rosebud County

On record in Birney

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 1 record

Population over time

3 figures

Birney fell from 108 to 97 between 2000 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
2000108
2010137+29 (+27%)
202097-40 (-29%)

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

54 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 54 fires within 5 miles of Birney between 1992 and 2019, burning about 2,866 acres in total. 51 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
Natural51
Debris and open burning1
Equipment and vehicle use1
Arson/incendiarism1

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
6 September 2009Naturalunder an acreCuster Gallatin National ForestPASTURE
27 September 2009Debris and open burningunder an acreNorthern Cheyenne AgencyMEDICINE
15 September 1996Naturalunder an acreCuster Gallatin National ForestPYRAMID
1 September 2009Naturalunder an acreCuster Gallatin National ForestHACKLEY
7 August 2009Naturalunder an acreMiles City Field OfficeBATTLE BUTTE
6 August 2002Naturalunder an acreCuster Gallatin National ForestWOOD
6 August 2002Naturalunder an acreCuster Gallatin National ForestROBERTS
26 August 2002Naturalunder an acreCuster Gallatin National ForestTIMBER

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Rosebud County

Storms near this place

43 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Birney in 43 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 30 hail, 10 thunderstorm wind, 2 flood, 1 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
August 1998HailBirney$5,000Several trees were reported damaged by hail and thunderstorm wind gusts.
August 1993HailBirney$5,000no account filed
July 2025Thunderstorm WindBirney-Gust estimated by a spotter.
June 2019FloodBirney-Very heavy rain over the Big Horn Mountains resulted in significant runoff into the Tongue River. The river crested just over 11 feet which was 4 feet higher than the record crest of 7.3 feet set in 2011. Flooding occurred along the Tongue River from the Birney area to just southeast of Colstrip. |One home was inundated by the flood waters. A levee in Ashland flooded at St Labre which resulted in homes in the Cheyenne Village near St Labre being accessed only by boat for a period of time. Water inundation of these homes was confined to crawl spaces and not up to floor level. Six homes on the Northern Cheyenne Tribe Reservation were inundated by floodwaters. The American Red Cross set up a shelter at the Ashland Public School. |The Tongue River was also out of its banks at Brandenberg, mainly in the grassy areas, but it did cover about 3 feet of the gravel on Tongue River Road.
June 2011FloodBirney-Rainfall combined with snow melt caused the Tongue River near Birney to fluctuate above and below flood stage throughout the entire month. The river crested at 6.34 feet on the 1st, 7.30 feet on the 12th, 6.94 feet on the 18th and 6.95 feet on the 27th. The 7.30 crest on June 12th was the highest crest on record at the gauge site near Birney. Sandbagging efforts avoided flooding downstream in the St Labre and Ashland areas. Otherwise, mainly lowland ranch and farm land was impacted.
September 2010HailBirney-Heavy rain resulting in 0.80 inches within 10 minutes was reported as well.
June 2010HailBirney-Pea, quarter, and golf ball size hail occurred from 730pm to 745 pm MDT.
July 2010Thunderstorm WindBirney-Power was reported out and 4 inch diameter tree limbs were down.
June 2002HailBirney-Hail piled one foot deep. Windows broken.
July 1998Thunderstorm WindBirney-A spotter reported thunderstorm wind gusts to 60 mph.
July 2021HailBirney-no account filed
July 2020Thunderstorm WindBirney-no account filed
June 2019HailBirney-no account filed
May 2018HailBirney-no account filed
June 2018HailBirney-no account filed
June 2018Thunderstorm WindBirney-no account filed
August 2016Thunderstorm WindBirney-no account filed
June 2015Thunderstorm WindBirney-no account filed
June 2015HailBirney-no account filed
July 2015HailBirney-no account filed
September 2015HailBirney-no account filed
May 2014HailBirney-no account filed
June 2014Thunderstorm WindBirney-no account filed
May 2010HailBirney-no account filed
June 2010HailBirney-no account filed
June 2010HailBirney-no account filed
June 2010Funnel CloudBirney-no account filed
June 2010HailBirney-no account filed
July 2010HailBirney-no account filed
August 2009HailBirney-no account filed
August 2009HailBirney-no account filed
July 2005Thunderstorm WindBirney-no account filed
June 2002HailBirney-no account filed
June 2002HailBirney-no account filed
June 2002HailBirney-no account filed
June 2002HailBirney-no account filed
June 2001HailBirney-no account filed
July 2001HailBirney-no account filed
July 2001HailBirney-no account filed
June 2000HailBirney-no account filed
July 1998HailBirney-no account filed
June 1996Thunderstorm WindBirney-no account filed
July 1996HailBirney-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Rosebud 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
Birney Day School7.0 miles9
Gopher (historical)13.2 miles8
Lame Deer22.3 miles8
Ashland22.8 miles9
Jimtown26.3 miles7
Saints Rest (historical)27.6 miles7
Wood Place28.1 miles8
Brandenberg37.2 miles6

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 BirneyAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q959337The 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 802035. 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.