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

South Spencer, Massachusetts

33 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Spencer town. It lies in ZIP code area 01562. It stands on Cranberry River. The Survey maps it on the East Brookfield quadrangle.

South Spencer within Worcester County

Then and now

1887 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 98 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 Spencer, surveyed 1985
Topographic sheet of South Spencer, 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

76 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 76 fires within 5 miles of South Spencer between 2015 and 2020, burning about 52 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 burning23
Recreation and ceremony19
Equipment and vehicle use8
Arson/incendiarism8
Smoking7
Missing data/not specified/undetermined6
Power generation/transmission/distribution3
Railroad operations and maintenance2

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
2 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
1 September 2020Smokingunder 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
2 August 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
3 July 2016Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
24 July 2016Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
16 July 2020Equipment 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 1,062 shown

Museums hold 1,062 specimens collected within 10 miles of South Spencer between 1839 and 1975: 682 Plantae, 190 Fungi, 173 Animalia, 15 Unrecorded, 2 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour et al. 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 Carex tenera var. teneraCarex tenera var. tenera1899R. M. Harper
A photograph of the species Ochrolechia tartarea, not of this specimenOchrolechia tartarea (L.) A.Massal.1839E. Tuckerman
A photograph of the species Mycobilimbia hypnorum, not of this specimenMycobilimbia hypnorum (Lib.) Kalb & Hafellner1848E. Tuckerman
A photograph of the species Cladonia cornucopioides, not of this specimenCladonia cornucopioides F.Wilson1850J. L. RussellLeicester
A photograph of the species Carex aperta, not of this specimenCarex aperta Boott1853W. BoottMassachusetts
Opegrapha varia Pers.1856E. Tuckerman
A photograph of the species Aspidium acrostichoides, not of this specimenAspidium acrostichoides (Michx.) Sw.1859M. S. Bebb
A photograph of the species Acarospora schleicheri, not of this specimenAcarospora schleicheri (Ach.) A.Massal.1862E. Hall
A photograph of the species Selaginella rupestris, not of this specimenSelaginella rupestris (L.) Spring1862J. T. Rothrock
A photograph of the species Solanum rostratum, not of this specimenSolanum rostratum Dunal1862C. W. SwanMassachusetts
Leucobryum vulgare Hampe1892unknown
Lobaria quercizans Michx.1892C. A. Cummings

All 1,062 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 South Spencer: 5 past producers. 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
Highway PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Kittredge PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Lyford Road PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Town of SpencerSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Vandale PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

1 since 2019

The National Weather Service names South Spencer in 1 storm report between 2019 and 2019: 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2019Flash FloodSouth Spencer-More than three feet of street flooding occurred on South Spencer Road near the railroad overpass at Lyford Cross Road in Spencer, MA. The road was 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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
East Brookfield1.8 miles33
Spencer2.1 miles42
Union Chapel (historical)2.6 miles33
Mystic Grove2.6 miles33
Hillsville2.9 miles32
Sibleys Corner3.0 miles42
Lower Wire Village3.3 miles42
Proctors corner3.7 miles42

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 Q122568036The 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 609846. 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.