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

New Ashford, Massachusetts

40 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1998. It stands in New Ashford town. It lies in ZIP code area 01237. It stands on Sugarloaf. The Survey maps it on the Cheshire quadrangle.

New Ashford within Berkshire County

Then and now

1886 to 1998

The same ground, surveyed 112 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of New Ashford, surveyed 1998

Topographic sheet of New Ashford, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

40 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

10 since 2008

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of New Ashford between 2008 and 2017, burning about 134 acres in total. 1 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	5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Recreation and ceremony	2
Natural	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
4 August 2017	Natural	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
13 June 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 May 2016	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
29 April 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
19 April 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	130 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	WIDOW WHITE PEAK
16 April 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
14 April 2016	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
14 April 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Berkshire County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,314 shown

Museums hold 1,314 specimens collected within 10 miles of New Ashford between 1828 and 1975: 587 Plantae, 516 Animalia, 194 Fungi, 9 Protozoa, 7 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A K Harrison, A Schwartz, A. Cowee 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
Antennaria plantaginifolia (L.) Richardson, 1823	1898	J. R. Churchill
Carex pensylvanica Lam.	1898	J. R. Churchill
Lycopodium annotinum var. pungens (Desv.) La Pylaie ex Desv.	1898	Kofoid, C.A.	North Adams.
Carex aestivalis M.A.Curtis ex A.Gray	1828	Collector unknown	Saddle Mountain, near Williamstown.
Carex emmonsii var. muhlenbergii (A.Gray ex Torrey) Rettig	1828	Collector unspecified	Williamstown. [Inferred locality from precise loc.]
Cystopteris bulbifera (L.) Bernh.	1828	Collector unspecified
Dryopteris goldiana (Hook. ex Goldie) A.Gray	1828	Collector unspecified
Fraxinus americana L.	1828	J. Torrey
Jamesoniella autumnalis (DC.) Steph.	1828	Ebenezer Emmons
Tilia americana L.	1828	Collector unspecified
Scorzoneroides autumnalis (L.) Moench	1850	not recorded
Spiraea tomentosa L.	1850	not recorded

All 1,314 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

6 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of New Ashford: 4 past producers, 2 producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Limestone, General, Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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
United States Gypsum Co Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
United States Gypsum Company Marble Quarry	Limestone, General	Producer	Stratabound
Bliss Mine	Iron	Producer	1782
Bliss Mine	Iron	Past Producer
Bliss Mine/Jagger Mine	Iron	Past Producer	Residual
Jagger Mine	Iron	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Berkshire County

Storms nearby

4 since 1996

The National Weather Service names New Ashford in 4 storm reports between 1996 and 2011: 3 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
June 2000	Flash Flood	New Ashford	$37,000	no account filed
April 1996	Hail	New Ashford	$2,000	no account filed
June 2011	Hail	New Ashford	-	Nickel size hail was reported during a thunderstorm in New Ashford.
June 2002	Hail	New Ashford	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Berkshire 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
North Hancock	2.6 miles	38
Steeles Corners	3.8 miles	40
South Williamstown	3.8 miles	40
Greylock Estates	4.4 miles	40
Cheshire	5.0 miles	40
Town Crest Village	5.1 miles	40
Farnams	5.2 miles	40
Cheshire Harbor	5.3 miles	40

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 607605. 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.