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

First Encounter Beach, Massachusetts

33 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Eastham town. It lies in ZIP code area 02642. It stands on Herring Brook. The Survey maps it on the Orleans OE W quadrangle.

First Encounter Beach within Barnstable County

Then and now

1887 to 1994

The same ground, surveyed 107 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of First Encounter Beach, surveyed 1994
Topographic sheet of First Encounter Beach, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

33 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

82 since 1993

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 82 fires within 5 miles of First Encounter Beach between 1993 and 2020, burning about 46 acres in total. 9 started naturally. 2 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/undetermined32
Equipment and vehicle use15
Debris and open burning10
Natural9
Recreation and ceremony8
Fireworks3
Arson/incendiarism2
Smoking2
Misuse of fire by a minor1

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
3 September 2018Naturalunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
28 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control1946
24 September 2004Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCape Cod National SeashoreEWTWNLINE
22 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 1995Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCape Cod National SeashoreMAURICES
5 August 2015Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control1520
3 August 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Barnstable County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 3,019 shown

Museums hold 3,019 specimens collected within 10 miles of First Encounter Beach between 1819 and 1975: 1,602 Animalia, 1,058 Plantae, 179 Fungi, 71 Chromista, 68 Bacteria, 41 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. R. Alan Hodgdon Hodgdon, A. R. Hodgdon 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
Laminaria caperata Bachelot de la Pylaie, 18241819Collector unknown
A photograph of the species Carya tomentosa, not of this specimenCarya tomentosa (Lam.) Nutt.1840Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Pseudopleuronectes americanus, not of this specimenPseudopleuronectes americanus (Walbaum, 1792)1853Atwood, Nathaniel E.Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Ammodytes americanus, not of this specimenAmmodytes americanus DeKay, 18421859Weinland, David FriedrichCape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Pomatomus saltatrix, not of this specimenPomatomus saltatrix (Linnaeus, 1766)1859Ordway, A.Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Stenotomus chrysops, not of this specimenStenotomus chrysops (Linnaeus, 1766)1860William BemisCape Cod Bay, Wellfleet Harbor
A photograph of the species Paralichthys oblongus, not of this specimenParalichthys oblongus (Mitchill, 1815)1862MCZ teamCape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Carex foenea, not of this specimenCarex foenea Willd.1864W. P. AlcottWellfleet
A photograph of the species Morone americana, not of this specimenMorone americana (Gmelin, 1789)1864MCZ teamCape Cod, rivers, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Scophthalmus aquosus, not of this specimenScophthalmus aquosus (Mitchill, 1815)1864MCZ teamCape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Alosa mediocris, not of this specimenAlosa mediocris (Mitchill, 1814)1871MCZ teamBrewster, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Peprilus triacanthus, not of this specimenPeprilus triacanthus (Peck, 1804)1871Blake, John HenryCape Cod, Massachusetts

All 3,019 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 First Encounter Beach: 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 SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
M F Roach Company PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Barnstable 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
Kingsbury Beach1.0 miles33
Thumpertown Beach1.4 miles33
Eastham1.7 miles33
Rock Harbor1.8 miles33
Campground Landing2.1 miles33
Namskaket2.2 miles33
Orleans2.4 miles33
Weeset2.8 miles33

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 616857. 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.