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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.

Forest River within Walsh County

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

Population over time

2 figures

Forest 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.

YearPeople Change
2010125
2020109-16 (-13%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 9 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

4 since 2018

Regional 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 burning2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2

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
23 August 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreNorth Dakota State Forest Service20189
7 June 2019Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresNorth Dakota State Forest Service201910
3 May 2018Debris and open burning2.0 acresNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceBURN BANNED 1
17 May 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceBURN BAND 4

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Walsh County

Storms near this place

10 since 2002

Regional 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2025HailForest River-Public report of golf ball size hail relayed by broadcast media.
August 2013Thunderstorm WindForest River-A few large tree branches were blown down in a farm shelterbelt.
July 2011Thunderstorm WindForest River-Large trees were blown over in Forest River.
June 2010Tornado (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 2009Tornado (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 2005Thunderstorm WindForest River-An NDAWN sensor measured a 58 mph wind gust.
July 2017HailForest River-no account filed
June 2010HailForest River-no account filed
April 2005HailForest River-no account filed
August 2002HailForest River-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Walsh 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
Voss5.6 miles9
Ardoch6.7 miles9
Ops6.9 miles8
Minto7.4 miles9
Veseleyville8.9 miles8
Kellogg10.4 miles9
Herriott10.5 miles9
Conway11.1 miles8

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 RiverAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2442897The 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.