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

Berkshire Heights, Massachusetts

40 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1885 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Great Barrington town. It lies in ZIP code area 01230. It stands on Christian Hill. The Survey maps it on the Great Barrington quadrangle.

Berkshire Heights within Berkshire County

Then and now

1885 to 1997

The same ground, surveyed 112 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Berkshire Heights, surveyed 1997
Topographic sheet of Berkshire Heights, surveyed 1885

Topographic sheets covering this place

40 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

29 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 29 fires within 5 miles of Berkshire Heights between 2015 and 2020, burning about 30 acres in total. 2 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 burning20
Equipment and vehicle use3
Natural2
Recreation and ceremony1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1
Railroad operations and maintenance1
Smoking1

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
13 September 2016Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
28 August 2016Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
1 August 2017Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
24 July 2016Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
18 July 2019Naturalunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
8 May 2015Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
7 May 2015Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 May 2015Debris and open burning5.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Berkshire County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 2,356 shown

Museums hold 2,356 specimens collected within 10 miles of Berkshire Heights between 1833 and 1975: 1,387 Plantae, 773 Animalia, 190 Fungi, 3 Chromista, 3 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A W Evans, A. Brown, A. E. Treat 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
A photograph of the species Betula alleghaniensis, not of this specimenBetula alleghaniensis Britton1833Collector unknown
A photograph of the species Betula pumila, not of this specimenBetula pumila L.1833Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Carex utriculata, not of this specimenCarex utriculata Boott1833W. L. Worcester
A photograph of the species Dennstaedtia punctilobula, not of this specimenDennstaedtia punctilobula (Michx.) T.Moore1833Collector unknown
A photograph of the species Gymnocarpium dryopteris, not of this specimenGymnocarpium dryopteris (L.) Newman1833Collector unknown
A photograph of the species Percopsis omiscomaycus, not of this specimenPercopsis omiscomaycus (Walbaum, 1792)1860Britton McCabeGreen R. (trib. of Housatonic R.), 1 mi. S of Great Barrington on Rt. 23
A photograph of the species Platanthera peramoena, not of this specimenPlatanthera peramoena A.Gray1863J. T. StewartGlendale
A photograph of the species Spiranthes magnicamporum, not of this specimenSpiranthes magnicamporum Sheviak1863J. T. StewartGlendale
A photograph of the species Carex vesicaria, not of this specimenCarex vesicaria L.1878L. H. HoysradtMt. Everett.
A photograph of the species Acer saccharum, not of this specimenAcer saccharum Marshall1897Vail, A.M.Tyringham
A photograph of the species Acer spicatum, not of this specimenAcer spicatum Lam.1897Vail, A.M.Vicinity of Tyringham
A photograph of the species Acorus calamus, not of this specimenAcorus calamus L.1897Vail, A.M.vicnity of Tyringham

All 2,356 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

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
Great Barrington0.6 miles40
Belcher Square1.4 miles40
Brookside1.5 miles40
Egremont Plain2.4 miles42
Van Deusenville2.7 miles40
South Egremont3.2 miles42
North Egremont3.7 miles42
Alford4.0 miles42

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 607313. 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.