Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Ashburnham, Massachusetts

46 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Ashburnham town. It lies in ZIP code area 01430. It stands on Brown Hill. The Survey maps it on the Ashburnham quadrangle.

Ashburnham within Worcester County

Then and now

1887 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 101 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Ashburnham, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Ashburnham, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

46 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 nearby

25 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 25 fires within 5 miles of Ashburnham between 2015 and 2020, burning about 22 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 1 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 burning	15
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3
Fireworks	3
Recreation and ceremony	2
Arson/incendiarism	1
Natural	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
2 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
30 August 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 August 2020	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
7 July 2016	Fireworks	3.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 July 2016	Fireworks	3.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
21 July 2016	Fireworks	3.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 June 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 704 shown

Museums hold 704 specimens collected within 10 miles of Ashburnham between 1870 and 1973: 316 Animalia, 242 Plantae, 134 Fungi, 5 Unrecorded, 4 Chromista, 3 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A., A. B. Seymour, A. F. Newton and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Carex maritima Gunnerus	1870	J. W. Congdon	Wellville
Veronica L.	1871	not recorded
Hylesinus aculeatus Say & T., 1824	1872	unknown	Fitchburg
Hypericum gentianoides (L.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.	1881	Fredrick L Sargent	Lunenburg
Botrychium multifidum (S.G.Gmel.) Rupr.	1882	Manning, Sara M.	Ashby
Drosera rotundifolia L.	1882	not recorded
Linnaea borealis subsp. longiflora (Torrey) Hultén	1882	not recorded
Moneses uniflora (L.) A.Gray	1882	M. A. M.	Winchendon
Peltandra virginica (L.) Schott	1892	A.
Rosa rubiginosa L.	1892	not recorded
Cylindrosporium chrysanthemi Ellis & Dearn.	1895	Seymour A. B.	Fitchburg
Carex scoparia Schkuhr ex Willd.	1896	W. Deane

All 704 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

1 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Ashburnham: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Lost Lake Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

17 since 2000

The National Weather Service names Ashburnham in 17 storm reports between 2000 and 2025: 9 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 1 lightning. 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
July 2010	Lightning	Ashburnham	$150,000	Lightning ignited a building fire in Ashburnham which caused significant damage.
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Ashburnham	$25,000	Many trees were damaged along Route 101 in Ashburnham center looking southwest towards Gardner.
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Ashburnham	$10,000	Thunderstorm winds downed large branches near the post office and large trees on Central Street.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Ashburnham	$10,000	Trees and wires were downed by thunderstorm winds.
August 2004	Hail	Ashburnham	$10,000	no account filed
September 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Ashburnham	$8,000	Large limbs were brought down by thunderstorm winds.
February 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Ashburnham	$5,000	A tree and wires on Cashman Hill Road in Ashburnham were downed by thunderstorm winds.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Ashburnham	$5,000	A tree on East Ridge Road and two large branches on Penacook Drive were downed by thunderstorm winds.
September 2025	Hail	North Ashburnham	-	In Ashburnham, 1 inch hail fell.
May 2020	Hail	Ashburnham	-	Dime size hail was reported in Ashburnham.
July 2020	Hail	Ashburnham	-	In Ashburnham, dime size hail was reported.
June 2008	Hail	Ashburnham	-	Penny sized hail covered the ground.
August 2015	Hail	Ashburnham	-	no account filed
August 2014	Hail	Ashburnham	-	no account filed
May 2014	Hail	Ashburnham	-	no account filed
July 2014	Hail	Ashburnham	-	no account filed
June 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Ashburnham	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Worcester 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
Blackburn Village	1.6 miles	46
Wellville	1.7 miles	46
Lane Village	2.3 miles	46
South Ashburnham	2.4 miles	40
Camp Collier	3.2 miles	40
North Ashburnham	3.3 miles	46
Whitmanville	3.7 miles	40
Old North Ashburnham Station	4.2 miles	46

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 610009. 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.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

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.