BlockBefore

Portal, North Dakota

7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1949 and the latest in 1982. It stands in Portal City. It lies in ZIP code area 58772. The Survey maps it on the Portal quadrangle. 125 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,955 feet above sea level.

Portal within Burke County

On record in Portal

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 2 records

Population over time

2 figures

Portal fell from 126 to 125 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
2010126
2020125-1 (-1%)

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

7 since 2016

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 7 fires within 5 miles of Portal between 2016 and 2020, burning about 82 acres in total. 1 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
Equipment and vehicle use4
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1
Debris and open burning1
Natural1

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
1 September 2020Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceGANS
29 July 2017Natural30 acresNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceLIGHTNING GRASS FIRE
17 July 2017Equipment and vehicle use30 acresNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceFIELD FIRE
2 June 2017Equipment and vehicle use15 acresNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceGRASS FIRE
20 May 2016Equipment and vehicle use6.0 acresNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceOIL TREATER GRASS FIRE
1 May 2017Debris and open burning1.0 acresNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceBRUSH PILE BURN
7 March 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceTRUCK FIRE

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Burke County

Storms near this place

16 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Portal in 16 storm reports between 1994 and 2022: 10 hail, 5 tornado, 1 thunderstorm wind. 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
June 2018HailPortal$500,000There was extensive damage in Portal, including to a fire truck.
July 2009Tornado (EF1)Portal$185,000A tornado was reported west of Portal near the Canadian border where it blew out the windows of two vehicles and blew the vehicles into the ditch. The tornado continued east-southeast towards the southern side of the town of Portal, uprooting 12 inch in diameter trees, snapping several power poles, and destroying an old oak barn. The tornado then continued east of Portal, uprooting several more large trees, downing more power lines, and destroying a granary, before dissipating. The damage corresponded to low end EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Tornado Scale. From that it was determined that wind speeds were around 90 mph. No injuries and no deaths were reported.
July 2022Thunderstorm WindPortal-Thunderstorm wind gusts were estimated by a trained spotter.
July 2004Tornado (F0)Portal-The tornado was thin and ropelike. The tornado was observed on the ground in open country for 2 or 3 minutes before lifting and dissipated.
August 2002HailPortal-Severe crop damage reported.
July 1998Tornado (F0)Portal-Tornado formed in Canada and moved south into the US. multiple funnels were reported.
July 1995Tornado (F0)Portal-Reported by North Dakota Highway Patrol.
July 2020HailPortal-no account filed
July 2012HailPortal-no account filed
July 2009HailPortal-no account filed
June 2004HailPortal-no account filed
July 2001HailPortal-no account filed
August 1999HailPortal-no account filed
June 1998Tornado (F0)Portal-no account filed
August 1994HailPortal-no account filed
August 1994HailPortal-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Burke 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
Sevenmile Corner7.0 miles7
Rival7.3 miles7
Lignite8.2 miles7
Flaxton10.7 miles7
Stampede12.5 miles7
Woburn13.4 miles6
Columbus13.8 miles8
Kincaid14.6 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 PortalAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2549947The 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 1030785. 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.