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Fontanelle, Nebraska

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1955 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Township 6. It lies in ZIP code area 68044. It stands on Buttermilk Creek. The Survey maps it on the Nickerson quadrangle. 67 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,085 feet above sea level.

Fontanelle within Washington County

On record in Fontanelle

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

Fontanelle grew from 54 to 67 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
201054
202067+13 (+24%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 8 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

14 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 14 fires within 5 miles of Fontanelle between 2009 and 2019, burning about 67 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 burning7
Equipment and vehicle use4
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2
Recreation and ceremony1

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
8 June 2017Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
30 June 2017Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
30 April 2018Recreation and ceremony35 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
26 April 2018Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
2 April 2015Debris and open burningunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
19 April 2018Debris and open burning5.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
17 April 2019Debris and open burning1.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
17 April 2018Debris and open burning1.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Washington County

Storms near this place

4 since 2010

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fontanelle in 4 storm reports between 2010 and 2025: 3 hail, 1 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
April 2025HailFontanelle-Public report of hail measured up to 2.5 in diameter.
July 2023HailFontanelle-Report of dime to quarter sized hail.
March 2019FloodFontanelle-Highway 91 is closed in both direction between Blair and Nickerson.
June 2010HailFontanelle-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Washington 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
Telbasta3.7 miles8
Arlington7.2 miles15
Orum8.4 miles8
Admah (historical)9.2 miles8
Kennard12.7 miles14
Herman14.6 miles8
Washington15.2 miles14
Blair16.1 miles9

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 FontanelleAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q4165213The 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 829339. 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.