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

West Harwich, Massachusetts

31 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Harwich town. It lies in ZIP code area 02671. It stands on Herring River. The Survey maps it on the Harwich quadrangle.

West Harwich within Barnstable County

Then and now

1887 to 1994

The same ground, surveyed 107 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 Harwich, surveyed 1994
Topographic sheet of West Harwich, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

31 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

73 since 2007

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 73 fires within 5 miles of West Harwich between 2007 and 2020, burning about 18 acres in total. 7 started naturally. 4 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/undetermined30
Debris and open burning17
Natural7
Equipment and vehicle use5
Arson/incendiarism4
Recreation and ceremony4
Smoking3
Misuse of fire by a minor1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1
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 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
26 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
20 September 2020Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
19 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
16 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
6 August 2020Fireworksunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
3 August 2017Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Barnstable County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 2,685 shown

Museums hold 2,685 specimens collected within 10 miles of West Harwich between 1840 and 1975: 1,499 Animalia, 878 Plantae, 244 Fungi, 36 Chromista, 22 Unrecorded, 5 Bacteria, 1 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. Pealey, A. R. Hodgdon 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 Uromyces lespedezae-procumbentis (Schwein.) Lagerh.Uromyces lespedezae-procumbentis (Schwein.) Lagerh.1900A. B. SeymourHyannis
A photograph of the species Carya tomentosa, not of this specimenCarya tomentosa (Lam.) Nutt.1840Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Calidris alba, not of this specimenCalidris alba (Pallas, 1764)1866not recordedCape Cod
A photograph of the species Alosa mediocris, not of this specimenAlosa mediocris (Mitchill, 1814)1871MCZ teamBrewster, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Bittiolum alternatum, not of this specimenBittiolum alternatum (Say, 1822)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Buccinum undatum, not of this specimenBuccinum undatum Linnaeus, 17581872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
Gastropoda1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Helix Linnaeus, not of this specimenHelix Linnaeus, 17581872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Hydrobia minuta, not of this specimenHydrobia minuta (Totten, 1834)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Lacuna vincta, not of this specimenLacuna vincta (Montagu, 1803)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Littorina littorea, not of this specimenLittorina littorea (Linnaeus, 1758)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Littorina rudis, not of this specimenLittorina rudis (Maton, 1797)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod

All 2,685 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 West Harwich: 1 past producer. 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
Nickerson T W PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Barnstable County

Storms nearby

1 since 2014

The National Weather Service names West Harwich in 1 storm report between 2014 and 2014: 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
August 2014HailWest Harwich-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Barnstable 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
Dennis Port0.9 miles31
Harwich Port2.0 miles31
North Harwich2.0 miles31
Harwich2.5 miles31
South Dennis2.7 miles31
West Dennis3.0 miles31
South Yarmouth3.6 miles31
Pleasant Lake3.7 miles31

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 616014. 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.