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

The Pines, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Billerica town. It lies in ZIP code area 01821. It stands on Jones Brook. The Survey maps it on the Wilmington quadrangle.

The Pines within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 102 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of The Pines, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of The Pines, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

41 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.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Billerica town, in the words of 1908.

1908, Billerica Town

Crosby

14. Josiah, son of Josiali. 5, b. 1704, Aug. 5; m. 1729-30, Feb. 3, Elizabetli French, dau. of William, 7. She d. 1739, Nov. 27. He d. before 1743. Killed by the Indians says tradition. Ch. Josiah. b. 3730, Nov. 24. He was in the military service in 1747, on the C-onnecticut river, and narrowly escaped with his life by swimming the river from the anibusead(» in which French.

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Fires nearby

48 since 2008

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 48 fires within 5 miles of The Pines between 2008 and 2020, burning about 30 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	28
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	14
Recreation and ceremony	3
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Railroad operations and maintenance	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	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
17 August 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
25 June 2020	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
17 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 May 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 May 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 May 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 891 shown

Museums hold 891 specimens collected within 10 miles of The Pines between 1898 and 1975: 366 Plantae, 347 Animalia, 159 Fungi, 7 Unrecorded, 5 Bacteria, 4 Protozoa, 3 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour & M. D. Feigley 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
Trientalis borealis Raf.	1900	A. P. Chute
Aglaospora profusa (Fr.) De Not.	1898	Collector unspecified
Boletus griseus Frost	1898	H. Webster
Cladonia rangiferina (L.) Weber	1898	Francis P Daniels	Arlington Heights
Cordyceps capitata (Holmsk.) Link	1898	Conant, [?] F.	Middlesex Fells
Cucurbitaria elongata (Fr.) Grev.	1898	J. G. Hall
Aphanochaete repens A.Braun	1900	F. S. Collins	Middlesex Fells, Wright's Pond, on Oedogonium, etc.
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Batrachospermum gelatinosum (L.) DC.	1900	F.S. Collins	Malden
Betula alleghaniensis Britton	1900	E. F. Williams
Boletus frostii J.L.Russell	1900	A. W. Flint
Buteo lineatus lineatus (Gmelin, 1788)	1900	Kenrick, H L	Lexington

All 891 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 10 workings within 5 miles of The Pines: 7 past producers, 2 producers, 1 plant. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Titanium. 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
Dynamet Tech--Burlington, Ma.	Titanium	Plant
Burlington S & G Co., Inc. Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Burlington Sand and Gravel	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
D R Raymond	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Drinkwater Quarry	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Joseph Roberto Inc	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Joseph Roberto Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Philip Drinkwater	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Quinn-Perkins Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Thomas Quinn Co Inc	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms nearby

1 since 2021

The National Weather Service names The Pines in 1 storm report between 2021 and 2021: 1 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
September 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	The Pines	$400	In Billerica, a tree or large branch (not clear which), was down near Connolly Road.

Every storm recorded in Middlesex 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
Pinehurst	1.0 miles	41
Fox Hill	2.1 miles	41
Nutting Lake	2.3 miles	41
Pattenville	2.5 miles	41
Billerica	2.5 miles	41
Silver Lake	2.6 miles	41
East Billerica	2.7 miles	41
Wilmington	2.8 miles	41

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 612228. 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.