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

Burlington, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Burlington town. It lies in ZIP code area 01803. It stands on Greenleaf Mountain. The Survey maps it on the Wilmington quadrangle.

Burlington within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 102 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Burlington, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Burlington, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

41 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

34 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 34 fires within 5 miles of Burlington between 2015 and 2020, burning about 15 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 burning	17
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	12
Recreation and ceremony	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Railroad operations and maintenance	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
22 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
20 August 2017	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	WINCHESTER
9 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
17 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 May 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 May 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 May 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,511 shown

Museums hold 1,511 specimens collected within 10 miles of Burlington between 1898 and 1975: 648 Animalia, 552 Plantae, 275 Fungi, 17 Bacteria, 8 Unrecorded, 6 Chromista, 5 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A B Seymour, A B. Proper 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
Trientalis borealis Raf.	1900	A. P. Chute
Aglaospora profusa (Fr.) De Not.	1898	Collector unspecified
Boletus griseus Frost	1898	H. Webster
Cantharellus infundibuliformis (Scop.) Fr.	1898	not recorded	Melrose.
Cladonia rangiferina (L.) Weber	1898	Francis P Daniels	Arlington Heights
Cordyceps capitata (Holmsk.) Link	1898	Conant, [?] F.	Middlesex Fells
Ctenidium malacodes Mitt.	1898	not recorded
Cucurbitaria elongata (Fr.) Grev.	1898	J. G. Hall
Agaricus brunnescens Peck	1900	Morris, G. E.	Waltham
Aphanochaete repens A.Braun	1900	F. S. Collins	Middlesex Fells, Wright's Pond, on Oedogonium, etc.
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, Roland	Stony Brook, Mass. [Massachusetts]
Batrachospermum gelatinosum (L.) DC.	1900	F. S. Collins	on stones in stream

All 1,511 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 16 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 16 workings within 5 miles of Burlington: 10 past producers, 4 producers, 2 plants. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Peat, Clay. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Austin Hastings--Woburn, Ma.	Iron	Plant
Dynamet Tech--Burlington, Ma.	Titanium	Plant
Mahoney:S Rocky Ledge	Peat	Past Producer	Peat
Rocky Ledge Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Marlborough Plant/Polishing Plates	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Roma Stone Pit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Burlington S & G Co., Inc. Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Burlington Sand and Gravel	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
D R Raymond	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Drinkwater Quarry	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms nearby

10 since 1997

The National Weather Service names Burlington in 10 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 lightning, 2 hail, 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
August 2003	Lightning	Burlington	$250,000	no account filed
July 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Burlington	$50,000	Nine oak trees were uprooted by thunderstorm winds at Angela Circle. Another tree was downed on Center Street.
July 2009	Flash Flood	Burlington	$50,000	Numerous roads were flooded and subsequently closed as anywhere from two to four inches of rain fell across Middlesex County. The most affected areas include Framingham and Marlborough. In Framingham, roads were closed due to mudslides as well as flooding, including Routes 126 and 9. Walking trails at Garden in the Woods were also washed out. In Marlborough, basements were flooded and a portion of the driveway at the New Hope Community Church was washed out.
July 2025	Lightning	Burlington	$10,000	In Burlington, there was a structure fire due to lightning on Cutting Lane.
July 2014	Lightning	Burlington	$10,000	Lightning struck a house on Eugene Road setting the attic on fire.
May 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Burlington	$5,000	A tree on Manhattan Drive was downed onto wires by thunderstorm winds.
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Burlington	$5,000	Wires on South Bedford Street and the Middlesex Turnpike were downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Burlington	$1,000	A large tree was downed by thunderstorm winds.
July 2016	Hail	Burlington	-	no account filed
August 1997	Hail	Burlington	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Middlesex 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
Havenville	0.8 miles	41
Winnmere	1.2 miles	46
Fox Hill	1.7 miles	41
Cummingsville	2.0 miles	46
North Woburn	2.0 miles	41
South Wilmington	2.2 miles	41
Woods Corner	2.2 miles	46
Pinehurst	2.4 miles	41

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 612150. 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.