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

Otter River, Massachusetts

33 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Templeton town. It lies in ZIP code area 01436. It stands on Bailey Brook. The Survey maps it on the Templeton quadrangle.

Otter River within Worcester County

Then and now

1887 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 101 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Otter River, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Otter River, 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

49 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 49 fires within 5 miles of Otter River between 2015 and 2020, burning about 24 acres in total. None 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	29
Smoking	9
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4
Recreation and ceremony	4
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	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
27 September 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
28 August 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 July 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 July 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 July 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
24 July 2016	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
24 July 2015	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
20 July 2016	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 619 shown

Museums hold 619 specimens collected within 10 miles of Otter River between 1856 and 1974: 334 Plantae, 144 Animalia, 136 Fungi, 3 Protozoa, 2 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A., A. F. Newton, A. J. Stone 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
Osmunda regalis L.	1900	Bates, J.A.	Royalston.
Pyxine sorediata (Ach.) Mont.	1856	Charles C. Frost
Carex maritima Gunnerus	1870	J. W. Congdon	Wellville
Veronica L.	1871	not recorded
Drosera rotundifolia L.	1882	not recorded
Linnaea borealis subsp. longiflora (Torrey) Hultén	1882	not recorded
Moneses uniflora (L.) A.Gray	1882	M. A. M.	Winchendon
Polygala paucifolia Willd.	1882	M. A. M.
Utricularia vulgaris subsp. macrorhiza (Leconte) Clausen	1886	M., K. M.
Peltandra virginica (L.) Schott	1892	A.
Rosa rubiginosa L.	1892	not recorded
Carex scoparia Schkuhr ex Willd.	1896	W. Deane

All 619 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

7 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of Otter River: 5 past producers, 2 producers. 2 still produce. 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.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
City of Gardner	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Dines Roger Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Highway Pit & Gardner Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Otter River Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Templeton Hwy Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Templeton Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Templeton Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

1 since 2018

The National Weather Service names Otter River in 1 storm report between 2018 and 2018: 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
September 2018	Flood	Otter River	-	At 9:05 PM EST, Leo Drive in Gardner was flooded and impassable.

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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Baldwinville	1.5 miles	33
East Templeton	2.5 miles	33
Templeton	3.0 miles	33
Templeton Station	3.1 miles	33
Gardner	3.2 miles	40
Partidgeville	3.5 miles	33
Brooks Village	3.9 miles	33
Olde English Village	3.9 miles	40

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 609955. 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.