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

West Medway, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Medway town. It lies in ZIP code area 02053. It stands on Mine Brook. The Survey maps it on the Holliston quadrangle.

West Medway within Norfolk County

Then and now

1887 to 1989

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 West Medway, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of West Medway, surveyed 1887

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.

Fires nearby

128 since 2007

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 128 fires within 5 miles of West Medway between 2007 and 2020, burning about 162 acres in total. None started naturally. 25 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/undetermined	40
Arson/incendiarism	25
Debris and open burning	23
Recreation and ceremony	20
Smoking	12
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Fireworks	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
28 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
27 September 2015	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
27 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
25 September 2015	Equipment and vehicle use	2.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
24 September 2019	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
17 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	FRANKLIN
16 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	FRANKLIN
13 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	FRANKLIN

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Norfolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 3,355 shown

Museums hold 3,355 specimens collected within 10 miles of West Medway between 1867 and 1975: 2,845 Animalia, 368 Plantae, 131 Fungi, 7 Unrecorded, 3 Chromista, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A Herz, A. B. Seymour, A. J. Grout 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
Hypoprepia fucosa Hübner, 1831	1900	not recorded	Sherborn
Grammia arge Drury, 1773	1867	not recorded	Sherborn
Operophtera bruceata (Hulst, 1886)	1873	not recorded	Sherborn
Gymnocarpium dryopteris (L.) Newman	1874	not recorded
Nitella tenuissima (Desv.) Kütz.	1874	Piper, S. M.
Thelypteris phegopteris (L.) Sloss.	1874	not recorded
Carex vestita Willd.	1875	Collector unspecified	Norfolk.
Haploa clymene Brown, 1776	1875	E. J. Smith	Sherborn
Carex cryptolepis Mack.	1876	T. Morong	Ashland
Carex cumulata (L.H.Bailey) Fernald	1876	T. Morong	Ashland
Hieracium canadense Michx.	1876	Morong, T.	Framingham
Juncus marginatus Rostk.	1876	T. Morong	Sandy bog, Ashland.

All 3,355 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 32 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 32 workings within 5 miles of West Medway: 25 past producers, 5 producers, 1 unknown, 1 plant. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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
Holliston Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Castellucci and Sons	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Milford Pink Granite Quarry	Granite	Past Producer
Simeone Stone Corp	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Bird Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Carl A Molinari	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Carl A. Molinari Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Finn Brothers Sand and Gravel	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Franklin Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Garbarino Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Norfolk County

Storms nearby

7 since 2003

The National Weather Service names West Medway in 7 storm reports between 2003 and 2023: 2 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 1 heavy rain, 1 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2020	Lightning	West Medway	$5,000	In Medway lightning caused a house fire on Lovering Street.
September 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	West Medway	$1,000	At 3:41 PM EST, wind brought a large tree down on Lovering Street in Medway.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	West Medway	$500	In Medway, a tree was down on Puddingstone Lane.
June 2023	Hail	West Medway	-	At 457 PM EDT (357 PM EST), a relative of a NWS employee, on Brandywine Rd. in Medway, MA, reported 0.75 inch diameter hail.
June 2020	Hail	West Medway	-	The public, supported by videos, reported hen egg size (2 inch diameter) hail, which was preceded by a 15-minute period of pea size hail.
August 2017	Flood	West Medway	-	At 425 PM EST, state route 109 in Medway had six to twelve inches of street flooding.
May 2003	Heavy Rain	West Medway	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Norfolk 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
Caryville	1.4 miles	41
Medway	1.5 miles	41
Westview	2.0 miles	44
North Bellingham	2.2 miles	44
Camp Breezy Meadow	2.4 miles	41
Brushwood	2.7 miles	44
Valley View	3.0 miles	44
Happy Hills	3.2 miles	44

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 Q122555138

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 611742. 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.