Sawyer, North Dakota
11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1929 and the latest in 1981. It stands in Sawyer City. It lies in ZIP code area 58781. It lies near Skinner Hill. The Survey maps it on the Sawyer quadrangle. 319 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,535 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresSawyer fell from 357 to 319 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 | 357 | |
| 2020 | 319 | -38 (-11%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
8 surveys from 11 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.
- 1929 USGS Sawyer quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1948 USGS Sawyer quadrangle1:24000
- 1949 USGS Sawyer quadrangle1:62500
- 1949 USGS Sawyer quadrangle1:24000
- 1954 USGS Minot quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1958 USGS Minot quadrangle1:250000
- 1980 USGS Minot quadrangle1:100000
- 1981 USGS Sawyer quadrangle1:24000
Fires near this place
3 since 2018Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Sawyer between 2018 and 2019, burning about 7 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 |
|---|---|
| Equipment and vehicle use | 2 |
| Debris and open burning | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 September 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | 5.0 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | 911181 |
| 14 July 2019 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | 2019-20 |
| 18 October 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | 1018181 |
Storms near this place
31 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sawyer in 31 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 17 hail, 11 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado, 1 flash flood. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2011 | Flash Flood | Sawyer | $300,000 | Runoff from very heavy rain forced rapid dam releases along the Souris River which resulted in an overtopping of levees and eventual levee failure. Communities through Ward County along the Souris River were very severely impacted. A mandatory evacuation was ordered along the river, including this one for Sawyer. In the end the river flooding resulted in impacts to around 15,000 residents along the river. This levee ovetopping flash flooded these areas. Dollar damage indicated here is not all inclusive from the flooding. |
| June 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | $15,000 | Severe thunderstorm winds resulted in several trees to be uprooted. |
| July 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | - | Thunderstorm wind gusts were estimated by a trained spotter. |
| July 2013 | Heavy Rain | Sawyer | - | Heavy rainfall of 1.25 inches fell in 25 minutes in Sawyer. |
| July 2011 | Hail | Sawyer | - | There were no reports of damage associated with the large hail. |
| July 2010 | Hail | Sawyer | - | This was the first of two waves of large hail to impact the community of Sawyer during this episode. |
| July 2010 | Hail | Sawyer | - | This was the second of two waves of large hail to impact Sawyer during this episode. |
| June 2008 | Hail | Sawyer | - | Penny to quarter size hail was reported. |
| June 2007 | Tornado (EF0) | Sawyer | - | Tornado was produced from the same tornadic thunderstorm that was in north central Mclean County earlier. This was a seperate tornado as the one earlier in Mclean County completely lifted. The tornado remained over rangeland and impacted no structures. |
| July 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | - | 12 acres of cut hay lined up in rows was blown completely away. |
| July 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | - | Cooperative observer reported large tree's down. |
| July 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| July 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| August 2023 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| July 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| July 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| July 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| August 2020 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| August 2020 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| August 2014 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| August 2013 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| August 2013 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| July 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| May 2007 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| June 2004 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| August 2001 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| August 2001 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| July 1999 | Hail | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| June 1995 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sawyer | - | no account filed |
| July 1994 | Hail | Sawyer | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Logan | 6.7 miles | 11 | |
| Surrey | 11.0 miles | 11 | |
| South Prairie | 13.1 miles | 9 | |
| Minot | 16.2 miles | 11 | |
| Drady | 20.2 miles | 11 | |
| Ruthville | 23.4 miles | 10 | |
| Burlington | 23.6 miles | 10 | |
| Wolseth | 24.9 miles | 9 |
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 Sawyer | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q584778 | 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 1031363. 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.







