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

South Ashburnham, Massachusetts

40 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Ashburnham town. It lies in ZIP code area 01430. It stands on Baldwin Hill. The Survey maps it on the Gardner quadrangle. 1,136 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 965 feet above sea level.

South Ashburnham within Worcester County

Population over time

2 figures

South Ashburnham grew from 1,062 to 1,136 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
20101,062
20201,136+74 (+7%)

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 South Ashburnham, surveyed 1988
Topographic sheet of South Ashburnham, surveyed 1887

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

67 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 67 fires within 5 miles of South Ashburnham between 2015 and 2020, burning about 32 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 1 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 burning37
Smoking11
Missing data/not specified/undetermined8
Recreation and ceremony5
Misuse of fire by a minor2
Equipment and vehicle use1
Arson/incendiarism1
Railroad operations and maintenance1
Natural1

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
27 September 2015Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
2 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
30 August 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
28 August 2016Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
6 July 2016Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 July 2016Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 July 2016Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
3 July 2016Debris and open burningunder 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 582 shown

Museums hold 582 specimens collected within 10 miles of South Ashburnham between 1870 and 1973: 272 Plantae, 231 Animalia, 74 Fungi, 3 Protozoa, 1 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A., A. B. Seymour, A. F. Newton 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 Athyrium filix-femina subsp. angustum (Willd.) R.T.ClausenAthyrium filix-femina subsp. angustum (Willd.) R.T.Clausen1900DavenportPine Hill; Medford
A photograph of the species Carex maritima, not of this specimenCarex maritima Gunnerus1870J. W. CongdonWellville
A photograph of the species Veronica L., not of this specimenVeronica L.1871not recorded
A photograph of the species Hylesinus aculeatus, not of this specimenHylesinus aculeatus Say & T., 18241872unknownFitchburg
A photograph of the species Carex foenea, not of this specimenCarex foenea Willd.1878W. BoottWachusett Mountain
A photograph of the species Sibbaldiopsis tridentata, not of this specimenSibbaldiopsis tridentata (Aiton) Rydb.1879Bailey, W.W.summit of Mt. Wachusett
A photograph of the species Botrychium multifidum, not of this specimenBotrychium multifidum (S.G.Gmel.) Rupr.1882Manning, Sara M.Ashby
A photograph of the species Drosera rotundifolia, not of this specimenDrosera rotundifolia L.1882not recorded
A photograph of the species Linnaea borealis, not of this specimenLinnaea borealis subsp. longiflora (Torrey) Hultén1882not recorded
A photograph of the species Peltandra virginica, not of this specimenPeltandra virginica (L.) Schott1892A.
Rosa rubiginosa L.1892not recorded
Cylindrosporium chrysanthemi Ellis & Dearn.1895Seymour A. B.Fitchburg

All 582 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 South Ashburnham: 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
Lost Lake PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working 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
Camp Collier1.5 miles40
East Gardner2.4 miles40
Ashburnham2.4 miles46
Whitmanville2.7 miles40
Blackburn Village3.3 miles46
Lane Village3.5 miles46
Wellville3.9 miles46
Old North Ashburnham Station3.9 miles46

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on South AshburnhamAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q7566016The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 610144. 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.