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

Cliftondale, Massachusetts

46 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1893 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Saugus town. It lies in ZIP code area 01906. It stands on Baker Hill. The Survey maps it on the Boston North quadrangle.

Cliftondale within Essex County

Then and now

1893 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 96 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Cliftondale, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of Cliftondale, surveyed 1893

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

111 since 2003

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 111 fires within 5 miles of Cliftondale between 2003 and 2020, burning about 230 acres in total. None started naturally. 12 were 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
Recreation and ceremony29
Missing data/not specified/undetermined22
Debris and open burning18
Smoking16
Arson/incendiarism12
Misuse of fire by a minor5
Equipment and vehicle use5
Fireworks3
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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
4 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
3 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
28 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
25 September 2015Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlSAUGUS
23 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
23 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
23 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Essex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 12,819 shown

Museums hold 12,819 specimens collected within 10 miles of Cliftondale between 1800 and 1975: 5,653 Plantae, 3,303 Animalia, 2,175 Fungi, 1,091 Chromista, 334 Bacteria, 223 Unrecorded, 40 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A B. Proper, A. A. Eaton 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 Rhodocollybia prolixa, not of this specimenRhodocollybia prolixa var. distorta (Fr.) Antonín, Halling & Noordel.1800R. B. MackintoshPeabody
Erysiphaceae1803A. B. Seymour
A photograph of the species Myrica L., not of this specimenMyrica L.1815Boott, J.W.West Cambridge [=Town of Arlington], five miles from Boston.
A photograph of the species Hamamelis L., not of this specimenHamamelis L.1816Boott, J.Andover Turnpike [=Northern Expressway?], 6 miles from Boston.
A photograph of the species Amaranthus cannabinus, not of this specimenAmaranthus cannabinus (L.) Sauer1822not recorded
A photograph of the species Potentilla argentea, not of this specimenPotentilla argentea L.1830A. P. Bhute
A photograph of the species Carex rosea, not of this specimenCarex rosea Willd.1833W. Boott
A photograph of the species Carex echinata, not of this specimenCarex echinata subsp. echinata1834Collector unspecifiedChelsea. [Inferred county from precise loc.]
A photograph of the species Desmarestia viridis, not of this specimenDesmarestia viridis (O.F.Müll.) J.V.Lamour.1841C. E. PeaseMarblehead
A photograph of the species Polysiphonia urceolata, not of this specimenPolysiphonia urceolata (Lightfoot ex Dillwyn) Greville1841F. S. CollinsRevere Beach, Revere, MA
A photograph of the species Carex caryophyllea, not of this specimenCarex caryophyllea Latourr.1847C. DeweySalem
A photograph of the species Carex muhlenbergii, not of this specimenCarex muhlenbergii Kunth ex Boott1847F. M. B. Boott

All 12,819 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 11 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 11 workings within 5 miles of Cliftondale: 3 plants, 3 past producers, 3 producers, 1 unknown. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Copper, Lead, Silica, 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 SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
(Facility) Vulcan Smelter--Chelsea, Ma.Copper, LeadPlant
Kay Locke Inc PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Lynn Eastern Smelt & Refin CorpGold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium, MercuryPlant
Saugus DepositIronOccurrence
Syncor Prdts Co--Malden, Ma.SilicaPlant
Malden QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenUnknown
Malden QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Richardson QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Saugus QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Trimount Bituminous Products CoStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer

Every working recorded in Essex County

Storms nearby

2 since 2008

The National Weather Service names Cliftondale in 2 storm reports between 2008 and 2021: 1 thunderstorm wind, 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
May 2008Thunderstorm WindCliftondale$1,000A large branch was blown down onto wires at the intersection of Park Street and Lincoln Avenue.
August 2021FloodCliftondale-In Somerville at Assembly Square, McGrath Highway at Middlesex Avenue was flooded and impassable.

Every storm recorded in Essex 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
Pleasant Hills0.5 miles46
Saugus1.1 miles46
Lynnhurst1.6 miles46
Raddin Station1.9 miles43
West Lynn1.9 miles43
Oakland Vale1.9 miles46
Merrimac Terrace2.3 miles46
North Saugus3.3 miles46

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 612724. 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.