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

Dracut, Massachusetts

48 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Dracut town. It lies in ZIP code area 01826. It stands on Potash Brook. The Survey maps it on the Lowell quadrangle.

Dracut 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 Dracut, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Dracut, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

48 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

174 since 1993

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 174 fires within 5 miles of Dracut between 1993 and 2020, burning about 131 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 30 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	55
Debris and open burning	31
Arson/incendiarism	30
Recreation and ceremony	27
Smoking	7
Misuse of fire by a minor	7
Equipment and vehicle use	6
Power generation/transmission/distribution	4
Natural	4
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Other causes	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
6 September 2002	Smoking	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
26 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 September 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
13 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	New Hampshire Division of Forest and Lands	not named
9 August 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
5 August 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
4 August 2002	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
20 August 2007	Natural	1.1 acres	New Hampshire Division of Forest and Lands	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 457 shown

Museums hold 457 specimens collected within 10 miles of Dracut between 1898 and 1975: 343 Plantae, 47 Animalia, 34 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 3 Chromista, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. C. Mathieson, A. F. Newton, A. F. Newton, M. K. Thayer 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
Exosporium pusillum P.Karst.	1898	King C. A.	Stony Brook
Aristida dichotoma Michx.	1899	E. F. Williams
Arthrosporium compositum Ellis	1899	Rorer	East Billerica
Bidens cernua L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Elatine americana (Pursh) Arn.	1899	not recorded
Fuirena pumila (Torr.) Spreng.	1899	E. F. Williams
Galium tinctorium (L.) Scop.	1899	not recorded
Gymnosporangium macropus Link	1899	Blake J.	Andover
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Betula nigra L.	1900	not recorded
Boletus frostii J.L.Russell	1900	A. W. Flint
Polygala sanguinea L.	1900	E. F. Williams

All 457 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 22 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 22 workings within 5 miles of Dracut: 10 past producers, 7 producers, 4 plants, 1 unknown. 11 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Graphite, Nickel, Gold, Silver, Copper. 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
Dracut Deposit	Cobalt, Nickel	Past Producer	1876, 1939
Dracut Ni Mine/Nickel Mine Hill	Nickel, Gold, Silver, Copper	Past Producer
Avaco Corp--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Stackpole Fibers Co--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Brox Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Chelmsford Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Dracut Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Essex Bituminous Concrete Products	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
George Brox Inc	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
A J Gagnon and Sons	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms nearby

17 since 1994

The National Weather Service names Dracut in 17 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 10 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 1 lightning, 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Dracut	$30,000	no account filed
September 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Dracut	$5,000	A tree and power lines on Harlem Street were downed by thunderstorm winds.
September 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Dracut	$5,000	A tree and wires on Bridge Street were downed by thunderstorm winds.
September 2020	Flood	Dracut	$3,000	In Dracut, a portion of Cheever Avenue had 2 feet of flooding, with a flooded basement.
June 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Dracut	$2,000	In Lowell, a large tree was down near the intersection of VFW Highway and Aiken Street. Also, a tree and wires were down on East Merrimack Street and a tree was down on Pawtucket Blvd. In Tewksbury, a tree was down on wires on Whipple Road.
August 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Dracut	$1,800	In Lowell, near the Dracut line, a tree was down on high tension wires on Billings Street. \|In Dracut, a 1-foot diameter large branch was down on Hildreth Street (public) and a large tree was down on Merrimack Avenue (police). Reports relayed by amateur radio.
July 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Dracut	$1,000	In Lowell, a tree and multiple power lines were down.
May 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Dracut	$1,000	Trees were down at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, where the Meteorology Department recorded a peak gust to 51 knots at 740 PM EST (840 PM EDT).
August 2012	Lightning	Dracut	$1,000	Lightning struck the chimney of a house on Mill Street and damaged the wood stove.
July 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Dracut	$300	In Dracut there was a tree down blocking the road.
July 2014	Hail	Dracut	-	Quarter sized hail was reported in Dracut. No damage was reported.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Dracut	-	Trees and wires at the intersection of Arlington and Cheever Streets were downed by thunderstorm winds.
February 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Dracut	-	Trees and wires were reported blown down and a chimney was knocked down in Dracut at approximately 3:00 PM.
May 1994	Hail	Dracut	-	Large hail was reported by the local police.
September 2014	Hail	Dracut	-	no account filed
July 2012	Hail	Dracut	-	no account filed
June 2002	Hail	Dracut	-	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
Centralville	1.0 miles	48
Pawtucketville	1.7 miles	48
Kenwood	2.1 miles	48
Belvidere	2.3 miles	48
Lowell	2.7 miles	48
Oaklands	2.7 miles	48
Collinsville	2.8 miles	48
Bleachery	2.9 miles	48

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611788. 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.