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

South Athol, Massachusetts

32 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Athol town. It lies in ZIP code area 01331. It stands on Riceville Brook. The Survey maps it on the Orange quadrangle.

South Athol within Worcester County

Then and now

1887 to 1990

The same ground, surveyed 103 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 Athol, surveyed 1990

Topographic sheet of South Athol, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

32 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

25 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 25 fires within 5 miles of South Athol between 2015 and 2020, burning about 50 acres in total. 1 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
Debris and open burning	14
Smoking	3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Arson/incendiarism	2
Natural	1
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Recreation and ceremony	1
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
28 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 August 2020	Natural	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
14 June 2020	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
7 May 2015	Debris and open burning	46 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 May 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 May 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 May 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
20 May 2020	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 1,351 shown

Museums hold 1,351 specimens collected within 10 miles of South Athol between 1856 and 1975: 734 Animalia, 424 Fungi, 169 Plantae, 15 Unrecorded, 9 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. Melander, A. Melander & A. Melander, A. P. Baker 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
Pyxine sorediata (Ach.) Mont.	1856	Charles C. Frost
Athyrium filix-femina var. angustum (Willd.) G.Lawson	1876	Harris, M.E.	Mount Loby
Hemitrichia vesparia (Batsch) T.Macbr., 1899	1882	not recorded	Petersham
Taphrina caerulescens (Desm. & Mont.) Tul.	1892	A.B. Seymour	Stoneham, Middlesex Fells
Solidago uliginosa Nutt.	1896	G. T. Hastings	Tully. Tully Lake.
Juncus nodosus L.	1898	G. T. Hastings	Tully Lake.
Amanita peckiana Kauffman	1901	A. P. Baker
Hypholoma radicosum J.E.Lange	1903	A. P. Baker
Stereum complicatum (Fr.) Fr.	1906	Spaulding P.	Petersham
Polyporus cinnabarinus (Jacq.) Fr.	1927	Spaulding P.	Petersham
unnamed	1928	Spaulding P.; Hansbrough J. R.	Petersham
Botrytis P.Micheli, 1729	1928	Perley Spaulding	Petersham

All 1,351 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

3 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of South Athol: 2 past producers, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron. 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
Jagger Mine	Iron	Occurrence	1845
Clarks Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Town Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

5 since 2008

The National Weather Service names South Athol in 5 storm reports between 2008 and 2024: 5 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	South Athol	$4,000	At 626 PM EST, in Athol, trees and wires were down on Partridgeville Road and Daniel Shays Highway. Tree and wires were also down on Chestnut Hill Avenue.
June 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	South Athol	$1,500	In Athol there was a tree down on a house near Gage Rd. There were also trees and wires down on Pleasant St and Riverview Ave as well as powerlines down on Brookside Rd.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	South Athol	$1,300	In Athol, trees and wires were down on South Athol Road.
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	South Athol	$1,100	In Athol, a tree branch was down on a house on Jeri Drive and a tree was down on Metropolitan Court. A transformer was blown and wires were down on Pequoig Avenue.
May 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	South Athol	$1,000	A large tree limb and wires were downed by thunderstorm winds.

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
Eaglesville	1.4 miles	32
Burrage Corner	2.1 miles	32
Partridgeville	2.9 miles	32
The Street	3.8 miles	32
Athol	4.8 miles	32
Petersham	5.0 miles	31
North Dana (historical)	5.3 miles	32
Pinedale	5.8 miles	32

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.

Wikidata item Q122594352

The 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 609479. 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.