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

West Agawam, Massachusetts

48 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Agawam Town City. It lies in ZIP code area 01030. It stands on White Brook. The Survey maps it on the West Springfield quadrangle.

West Agawam within Hampden County

Then and now

1886 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 99 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of West Agawam, surveyed 1985
Topographic sheet of West Agawam, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

48 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

333 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 333 fires within 5 miles of West Agawam between 2015 and 2020, burning about 135 acres in total. 12 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined183
Equipment and vehicle use81
Recreation and ceremony24
Debris and open burning18
Natural12
Smoking11
Arson/incendiarism2
Misuse of fire by a minor1
Fireworks1

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
8 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
7 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
6 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
6 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
5 September 2018Natural2.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
5 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 September 2018Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 September 2016Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Hampden County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,352 shown

Museums hold 1,352 specimens collected within 10 miles of West Agawam between 1844 and 1975: 549 Animalia, 434 Plantae, 332 Fungi, 26 Chromista, 11 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour; S., A. K. Harrison, F. G. Floyd 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 Sphagnum recurvum P.Beauv.Sphagnum recurvum P.Beauv.1893Daniel C. Eaton
Specimen of Taphrina johansonii Sadeb.Taphrina johansonii Sadeb.1894W.G. Farlow
Specimen of Lygodium palmatum (Bernh.) Sw.Lygodium palmatum (Bernh.) Sw.1895Deane, WalterEast Longmeadow;;;;
A photograph of the species Carex siccata, not of this specimenCarex siccata Dewey1844Collector unknown
A photograph of the species Amphicarpaea bracteata, not of this specimenAmphicarpaea bracteata (L.) Fernald1845Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Galeopsis tetrahit, not of this specimenGaleopsis tetrahit L.1845not recorded
A photograph of the species Alopecurus geniculatus, not of this specimenAlopecurus geniculatus L.1850not recorded
A photograph of the species Lactuca hirsuta, not of this specimenLactuca hirsuta Muhl. ex Nutt.1850Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Carex canescens, not of this specimenCarex canescens L.1852Collector unknownWestfield.
A photograph of the species Carex pallescens, not of this specimenCarex pallescens L.1852Collector unknownWestfield
A photograph of the species Eurybia schreberi, not of this specimenEurybia schreberi (Nees) Nees1852C. A. Shurtleff
Alnus incana (L.) Moench1891unknownWoods Hall.

All 1,352 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 37 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 37 workings within 5 miles of West Agawam: 19 past producers, 13 producers, 4 occurrences, 1 unknown. 13 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Brick Clay, Clay. 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
Macia Emery MineEmeryOccurrenceEmery
W. New England Smelting Works IncCopperProducer
Clay PitBrick ClayProducerClay
Clay PitBrick ClayProducerClay
Clay PitClayPast Producer
Clay PitClayPast Producer
Clay PitBrick ClayProducerClay
Clay PitBrick ClayProducerClay
Clay PitClayPast Producer
Clay PitClayPast Producer

Every working recorded in Hampden County

Storms nearby

3 since 2017

The National Weather Service names West Agawam in 3 storm reports between 2017 and 2019: 1 flood, 1 lightning, 1 hail. 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
April 2019LightningWest Agawam$500At 5:22 AM EDT, wires were reported down on Tennis Road at Mill Street due to a lightning strike.
August 2019HailWest Agawam-Golf ball size hail was reported in the western portion of Agawam.
July 2017FloodWest Agawam-At 947 PM EST, amateur radio operators reported cars stuck in flood waters on Mill Street and Poplar Street in Agawam. At 952 PM EST, Henry Street and Suffield Street were reported flooded and impassable. At 1002 PM EST, North Westfield Street was impassable with flood waters three feet deep; multiple cars were stuck in the water. At 1037 PM EST, the intersection of Kensington and Mill Streets was flooded and impassable.

Every storm recorded in Hampden 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
O'Briens Corner0.8 miles48
North Agawam1.5 miles48
Suffield Corner1.5 miles48
Feeding Hills1.7 miles48
Mittineague1.7 miles48
Agawam2.0 miles50
Tatham2.3 miles48
West Springfield2.5 miles50

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 Q122547002The 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 608961. 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.