Rio Puerco, New Mexico

9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1952 and the latest in 1991. It stands in the Belen census division. It lies in ZIP code area 87002. It stands on Arroyo Garcia. The Survey maps it on the Rio Puerco quadrangle.

Rio Puerco within Valencia County

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 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.

1952 USGS Rio Puerco quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
1954 USGS Socorro quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1958 USGS Socorro quadrangle1:250000
1962 USGS Socorro quadrangle1:250000
1979 USGS Belen quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
1991 USGS Rio Puerco quadrangle1:24000

Fires near this place

10 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of Rio Puerco between 1996 and 2011, burning about 297 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
Railroad operations and maintenance	3
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1
Smoking	1
Debris and open burning	1
Natural	1
Recreation and ceremony	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
27 August 2001	Debris and open burning	under an acre	New Mexico State Forestry Division	PARK
10 August 2011	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Southern Pueblos Agency	DRAGONFLY
26 June 2008	Natural	286 acres	Laguna Agency	GARICA
23 June 2007	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	New Mexico State Forestry Division	not named
13 June 1998	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.0 acres	New Mexico State Forestry Division	CENTRALBOSQU
25 May 2001	Recreation and ceremony	5.0 acres	New Mexico State Forestry Division	WASEY
19 May 1996	Smoking	under an acre	Laguna Agency	BULL
12 May 2011	Railroad operations and maintenance	1.0 acres	Laguna Agency	NORTHERN R/R

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

South Garcia

Every fire recorded in Valencia County

Storms near this place

2 since 2013

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Rio Puerco in 2 storm reports between 2013 and 2015: 1 flood, 1 hail. 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
September 2013	Flood	Rio Puerco	$200,000	State EOC Situation Reports detailed that 40 families were evacuated from Highland Meadow neighborhood due to flooding. A culvert 25' wide by 10' deep was completely destroyed and National Guard assisted recovery effort using mobile bridge. Another 20 families affected. A total of 7 structures were damaged in the mult-day event.
July 2015	Hail	Rio Puerco	-	Quarter size hail along NM 6.

Every storm recorded in Valencia 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Dalies	7.2 miles	10
South Garcia	7.6 miles	11
Sandia	8.5 miles	10
Suwanee	12.4 miles	10
Paquita	12.5 miles	10
Los Chavez	13.4 miles	10
Los Lunas	13.8 miles	10
Los Lentes	14.0 miles	10

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 899875. 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.