Forest River, North Dakota
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1926 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Forest River City. It lies in ZIP code area 58233. The Survey maps it on the Forest River quadrangle. 109 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 866 feet above sea level.
On record in Forest 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 1 record
Forest River State Banklisted 2019
Population over time
2 figuresForest River fell from 125 to 109 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 | 125 | |
| 2020 | 109 | -16 (-13%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 9 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.
- 1926 USGS Ardoch quadrangle1:62500
- 1952 USGS Thief River Falls quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1956 USGS Thief River Falls quadrangle1:250000
- 1957 USGS Thief River Falls quadrangle1:250000
- 1963 USGS Forest River quadrangle1:24000
- 1967 USGS Thief River Falls quadrangle1:250000
- 1985 USGS Grafton quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
4 since 2018Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Forest River between 2018 and 2019, burning about 4 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 burning | 2 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 August 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | North Dakota State Forest Service | 20189 |
| 7 June 2019 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | 201910 |
| 3 May 2018 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | BURN BANNED 1 |
| 17 May 2018 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | North Dakota State Forest Service | BURN BAND 4 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
10 since 2002Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Forest River in 10 storm reports between 2002 and 2025: 5 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2025 | Hail | Forest River | - | Public report of golf ball size hail relayed by broadcast media. |
| August 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forest River | - | A few large tree branches were blown down in a farm shelterbelt. |
| July 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forest River | - | Large trees were blown over in Forest River. |
| June 2010 | Tornado (EF0) | Forest River | - | The tornado tracked east-southeastward intermittently for about 3 miles. Several large tree branches and limbs were blown down in shelterbelts along the track. Peak winds were estimated at 80 mph. |
| June 2009 | Tornado (EF0) | Forest River | - | From near Forest River, a tornado tracked east-southeast to about 1.5 miles southwest of Ardoch. The tornado broke down several large tree limbs in shelterbelts and produced a fairly wide debris swirl to the west of Ardoch, as viewed by observers near the southwest edge of Ardoch. Peak winds were estimated at 80 mph. |
| June 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Forest River | - | An NDAWN sensor measured a 58 mph wind gust. |
| July 2017 | Hail | Forest River | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Forest River | - | no account filed |
| April 2005 | Hail | Forest River | - | no account filed |
| August 2002 | Hail | Forest River | - | 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.
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 Forest River | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2442897 | 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 1029002. 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.






