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Chaffee, North Dakota

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1895 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Walburg Township. It lies in ZIP code area 58079. The Survey maps it on the Chaffee quadrangle. It stands 968 feet above sea level.

Chaffee within Cass County

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 11 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

6 since 2008

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 6 fires within 5 miles of Chaffee between 2008 and 2020, burning about 5 acres in total. None started naturally. None 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
Debris and open burning4
Railroad operations and maintenance2

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
2 September 2016Debris and open burning1.0 acresNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceGRASS FIRE - CASSELTON
7 June 2019Debris and open burning1.0 acresNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceEMBDEN
8 December 2020Debris and open burning1.0 acresNorth Dakota State Forest Service12/8/2020
4 November 2020Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreNorth Dakota State Forest Service11/4/2020
29 November 2020Railroad operations and maintenance1.0 acresNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceCASSELTON 2020-00069
17 November 2008Debris and open burningunder an acreDakota Prairie National GrasslandsPAINTNER

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Cass County

Storms near this place

16 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Chaffee in 16 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 10 hail, 3 tornado, 2 thunderstorm wind, 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
July 2007Tornado (EF1)Chaffee$250,000This tornado yanked one aluminum high voltage power tower out of its steel footings and toppled several others. It snapped off mature oak and ash trees near the Maple River and snapped several wooden power poles at multiple road crossings across its path. The tornado continued into Ransom County, where it dissipated at 640 pm CST. Peak winds were estimated at 105 mph.
July 2001HailChaffee$50,000The ground was white with hail. The hail killed birds and damaged several vehicles and buildings.
July 2001Thunderstorm WindChaffee$1,000Trees were blown down.
June 2025HailChaffee-Received a report of 1 inch hail from a trained weather spotter.
June 2020Thunderstorm WindChaffee-Large tree branches and power lines were blown down.
August 2018HailChaffee-Hail covered the ground. Wind gusts of 35 to 40 mph accompanied the hail.
June 2018Tornado (EF0)Chaffee-There was a lot of rotation with this storm, it sent out funnel clouds every few minutes. A couple of brief touchdowns were evident in video over an open field. Peak winds were estimated at 70 mph.
May 2016HailChaffee-Along with the hail, 2.25 inches of rain also fell.
June 2014Tornado (EF0)Chaffee-A persistent funnel was evident tracking to the south and located just east of Chaffee. A brief touchdown occurred in an opened field.
June 2013HailChaffee-The spotter also reported 1.36 inches of rain.
June 2014Funnel CloudChaffee-no account filed
May 2005HailChaffee-no account filed
July 2004HailChaffee-no account filed
July 2001HailChaffee-no account filed
August 1997HailChaffee-no account filed
September 1997HailChaffee-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Cass 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
Embden4.7 miles11
Lynchburg4.8 miles11
Myra5.7 miles11
Everest9.1 miles11
Wheatland9.2 miles11
Leonard10.2 miles11
Magnolia10.4 miles11
Alice10.8 miles10

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 ChaffeeAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q5066781The 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 1028331. 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.