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.
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
- Bones Brothers Ranchlisted 2004
Population over time
3 figuresBirney 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 108 | |
| 2010 | 137 | +29 (+27%) |
| 2020 | 97 | -40 (-29%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 7 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.
- 1954 USGS Hardin quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Hardin quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Hardin quadrangle1:250000
- 1967 USGS Birney quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1980 USGS Birney quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
54 since 1992Regional 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 |
|---|---|
| Natural | 51 |
| Debris and open burning | 1 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 September 2009 | Natural | under an acre | Custer Gallatin National Forest | PASTURE |
| 27 September 2009 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Northern Cheyenne Agency | MEDICINE |
| 15 September 1996 | Natural | under an acre | Custer Gallatin National Forest | PYRAMID |
| 1 September 2009 | Natural | under an acre | Custer Gallatin National Forest | HACKLEY |
| 7 August 2009 | Natural | under an acre | Miles City Field Office | BATTLE BUTTE |
| 6 August 2002 | Natural | under an acre | Custer Gallatin National Forest | WOOD |
| 6 August 2002 | Natural | under an acre | Custer Gallatin National Forest | ROBERTS |
| 26 August 2002 | Natural | under an acre | Custer Gallatin National Forest | TIMBER |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
43 since 1993Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 1998 | Hail | Birney | $5,000 | Several trees were reported damaged by hail and thunderstorm wind gusts. |
| August 1993 | Hail | Birney | $5,000 | no account filed |
| July 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Birney | - | Gust estimated by a spotter. |
| June 2019 | Flood | Birney | - | 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 2011 | Flood | Birney | - | 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 2010 | Hail | Birney | - | Heavy rain resulting in 0.80 inches within 10 minutes was reported as well. |
| June 2010 | Hail | Birney | - | Pea, quarter, and golf ball size hail occurred from 730pm to 745 pm MDT. |
| July 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Birney | - | Power was reported out and 4 inch diameter tree limbs were down. |
| June 2002 | Hail | Birney | - | Hail piled one foot deep. Windows broken. |
| July 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Birney | - | A spotter reported thunderstorm wind gusts to 60 mph. |
| July 2021 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| July 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2019 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| May 2018 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2018 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Birney | - | no account filed |
| August 2016 | Thunderstorm Wind | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2015 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| July 2015 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| September 2015 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| May 2014 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Birney | - | no account filed |
| May 2010 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Funnel Cloud | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| July 2010 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| August 2009 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| August 2009 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| July 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2001 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 2000 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| July 1998 | Hail | Birney | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Birney | - | no account filed |
| July 1996 | Hail | Birney | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Birney Day School | 7.0 miles | 9 | |
| Gopher (historical) | 13.2 miles | 8 | |
| Lame Deer | 22.3 miles | 8 | |
| Ashland | 22.8 miles | 9 | |
| Jimtown | 26.3 miles | 7 | |
| Saints Rest (historical) | 27.6 miles | 7 | |
| Wood Place | 28.1 miles | 8 | |
| Brandenberg | 37.2 miles | 6 |
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 Birney | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q959337 | 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 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.




