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

Waites Corner, Massachusetts

42 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Fitchburg City. It lies in ZIP code area 01420. It stands on Flag Brook. The Survey maps it on the Fitchburg quadrangle.

Waites Corner 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 Waites Corner, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Waites Corner, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

42 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

150 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 150 fires within 5 miles of Waites Corner between 2015 and 2020, burning about 136 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 burning	64
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	57
Smoking	16
Recreation and ceremony	5
Fireworks	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Arson/incendiarism	1
Natural	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
8 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
7 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 September 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 September 2017	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
24 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.4 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	MONOOSNOC HILL

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 705 shown

Museums hold 705 specimens collected within 10 miles of Waites Corner between 1870 and 1973: 270 Plantae, 262 Animalia, 156 Fungi, 8 Unrecorded, 6 Chromista, 3 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. F. Newton, A. Ferrett 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
Porella platyphylla (L.) Pfeiff.	1895	James F. Collins	South spur, Mount Wachusett
Athyrium filix-femina subsp. angustum (Willd.) R.T.Clausen	1900	Davenport	Pine Hill; Medford
Carex maritima Gunnerus	1870	J. W. Congdon	Wellville
Hylesinus aculeatus Say & T., 1824	1872	unknown	Fitchburg
Carex foenea Willd.	1878	W. Boott	Wachusett Mountain
Sibbaldiopsis tridentata (Aiton) Rydb.	1879	Bailey, W.W.	summit of Mt. Wachusett
Hypericum gentianoides (L.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.	1881	Fredrick L Sargent	Lunenburg
Botrychium multifidum (S.G.Gmel.) Rupr.	1882	Manning, Sara M.	Ashby
Aecidium Pers.	1883	Sargent, F. L.	Lunenburg, Mass. [Massachusetts]
Aulacomnium heterostichum (Hedw.) Bruch & Schimp.	1883	not recorded
Calla palustris L.	1883	G. F. Whittemore	Fitchburg
Arthuriomyces peckianus (Howe) Cummins & Y.Hirats.	1892	W. B. Hosmer

All 705 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 Waites Corner: 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Tin, Lithium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Fitchburg Area	Tin, Lithium	Occurrence

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

6 since 2010

The National Weather Service names Waites Corner in 6 storm reports between 2010 and 2023: 2 flood, 2 flash flood, 1 hail, 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
July 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Waites Corner	$1,000	At 6:23 PM EST, a large tree was down blocking Pershing Street at Leroy Street in Fitchburg.
July 2023	Flash Flood	Waites Corner	-	In Fitchburg, cars were stuck in flood waters at the intersection of Franklin Rd at Royalston St.
September 2023	Flash Flood	Waites Corner	-	In Fitchburg, cars were stuck in flood waters by the bridge on River St.
July 2014	Flood	Waites Corner	-	Up to one foot of water flooded Route 31/River Street under the train trestle.
July 2010	Flood	Waites Corner	-	Several cars were stuck in flood waters on Route 12 in Fitchburg and the northern part of Leominster. The lower level of a downtown parking garage in Leominster was flooded, with water up to the doors of cars.
August 2014	Hail	Waites Corner	-	no account filed

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
Wachusett Station	0.5 miles	42
West Fitchburg	0.9 miles	42
Wachusett	2.0 miles	42
Mantyranta	2.4 miles	40
Bakers Grove	2.6 miles	40
Lakewood Park	2.8 miles	40
Fitchburg	2.9 miles	42
Whitmanville	3.0 miles	40

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 Q122598797

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 617258. 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.