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

Leicester, Massachusetts

42 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1889 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Leicester town. It lies in ZIP code area 01524. It stands on Leicester Hill. The Survey maps it on the Leicester quadrangle.

Leicester within Worcester County

Then and now

1889 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 100 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Leicester, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of Leicester, surveyed 1889

Topographic sheets covering this place

42 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

89 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 89 fires within 5 miles of Leicester between 2015 and 2020, burning about 75 acres in total. None started naturally. 8 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
Debris and open burning30
Recreation and ceremony20
Smoking13
Arson/incendiarism8
Missing data/not specified/undetermined7
Equipment and vehicle use6
Railroad operations and maintenance3
Other causes1
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
3 September 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
3 September 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
2 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
14 September 2016Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
1 September 2020Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
1 September 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
31 August 2015Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
31 August 2015Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,650 shown

Museums hold 1,650 specimens collected within 10 miles of Leicester between 1839 and 1974: 995 Plantae, 371 Animalia, 262 Fungi, 16 Unrecorded, 4 Protozoa, 2 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A E WOODHEAD, A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour 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
Specimen of Pooecetes gramineus gramineus (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)Pooecetes gramineus gramineus (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)1900Roscoe I. Giles
A photograph of the species Ochrolechia tartarea, not of this specimenOchrolechia tartarea (L.) A.Massal.1839E. Tuckerman
A photograph of the species Carex laxiflora, not of this specimenCarex laxiflora Lam.1840Thomas NuttallCambridge.
A photograph of the species Carex vestita, not of this specimenCarex vestita Willd.1840Thomas NuttallCambridge.
A photograph of the species Mycobilimbia hypnorum, not of this specimenMycobilimbia hypnorum (Lib.) Kalb & Hafellner1848E. Tuckerman
A photograph of the species Tamias striatus, not of this specimenTamias striatus lysteri (Richardson, 1829)1848L AgassizPARSONS ISLAND
A photograph of the species Cladonia cornucopioides, not of this specimenCladonia cornucopioides F.Wilson1850J. L. RussellLeicester
A photograph of the species Geranium maculatum, not of this specimenGeranium maculatum L.1850not recorded
A photograph of the species Packera aurea, not of this specimenPackera aurea (L.) Á.Löve & D.Löve1850not recorded
Elymus repens (L.) Gould1892Arthur B. SeymourCambridge.
Festuca pratensis Huds.1892Arthur B. SeymourCambridge.
Hepatica americana (DC.) Ker Gawl.1892Clarence Kinney

All 1,650 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

5 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Leicester: 4 past producers, 1 producer. 1 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
Capa CorporationSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Kittredge PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Town of SpencerSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Vandale PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Wiley PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

11 since 2000

The National Weather Service names Leicester in 11 storm reports between 2000 and 2022: 7 hail, 4 thunderstorm wind. 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
July 2006Thunderstorm WindLeicester$5,000no account filed
July 2006Thunderstorm WindLeicester$5,000no account filed
April 2021Thunderstorm WindLeicester$800In Leicester, there was a tree and wires down on Grove St.
March 2022Thunderstorm WindLeicester-In Leicester, a trained spotter measured a wind gust to 59 mph.
June 2017HailLeicester-At 3 PM EST, an amateur radio operator reported 1-inch diameter hail in Leicester.
June 2017HailLeicester-At 301 PM, an amateur radio operator reported 1.25 inch diameter hail at Leicester.
May 2014HailLeicester-Nickel to quarter size hail fell in Leicester.
August 2014HailLeicester-no account filed
July 2010HailLeicester-no account filed
June 2006HailLeicester-no account filed
May 2000HailLeicester-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Worcester 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
Cherry Valley1.9 miles44
Tafts Corner2.8 miles42
Valley Falls (historical)2.8 miles44
Greenville2.9 miles42
Jamesville3.0 miles44
Proctors corner3.0 miles42
West Tatnuck3.2 miles45
Ludlow3.2 miles44

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 610365. 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.