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

Westlands, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Chelmsford town. It lies in ZIP code area 01824. It stands on Golden Cove Brook. The Survey maps it on the Billerica quadrangle.

Westlands 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 Westlands, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Westlands, 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.

Fires nearby

109 since 2002

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 109 fires within 5 miles of Westlands between 2002 and 2020, burning about 56 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 26 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	33
Debris and open burning	28
Arson/incendiarism	26
Recreation and ceremony	9
Smoking	4
Natural	3
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Other causes	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
6 September 2002	Smoking	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
26 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 September 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
9 August 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
5 August 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
4 August 2002	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
18 August 2002	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
17 August 2020	Debris and open burning	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 602 shown

Museums hold 602 specimens collected within 10 miles of Westlands between 1898 and 1975: 374 Plantae, 161 Animalia, 34 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 3 Chromista, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. C. Mathieson, A. F. Newton 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
Exosporium pusillum P.Karst.	1898	King C. A.	Stony Brook
Antennaria howellii subsp. neodioica (Greene) R.J.Bayer	1899	Williams, E.F.
Antennaria neglecta Greene	1899	not recorded
Aristida dichotoma Michx.	1899	E. F. Williams
Arthrosporium compositum Ellis	1899	Rorer	East Billerica
Asarum canadense L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Bidens cernua L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Dichanthelium oligosanthes subsp. scribnerianum (Nash) Freckmann & Lelong	1899	E. F. Williams
Elatine americana (Pursh) Arn.	1899	not recorded
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Boletus frostii J.L.Russell	1900	A. W. Flint
Corylus americana Walter	1900	E. F. Williams

All 602 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 23 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 23 workings within 5 miles of Westlands: 12 past producers, 7 producers, 4 plants. 11 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Graphite. 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
Dracut Deposit	Cobalt, Nickel	Past Producer	1876, 1939
Avaco Corp--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Chelmsford Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Stackpole Fibers Co--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
West Chelmsford Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Fletcher Westford Quarry	Granite	Producer
Forest Road Quarry	Granite	Past Producer
Guilmette Bros Granite	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
H E Fletcher Co	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Le Masurier Granite Quarry Inc	Granite	Past Producer	Granite

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms nearby

10 since 2008

The National Weather Service names Westlands in 10 storm reports between 2008 and 2024: 8 thunderstorm wind, 2 flood. The reports record 1 injury. 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 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Westlands	1 hurt, $10,000	Trees on VFW Parkway were downed by thunderstorm winds. One of these trees fell on a person, injuring their leg.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Westlands	$50,000	Numerous trees were downed throughout town, including onto a car. Trees and wires on Steven Street, Fairmont Street, Greendale Avenue, and Emery Avenue were downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Westlands	$15,000	Trees and wires on Dunbar Avenue were downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Westlands	$15,000	Trees and wires on Merrimack Street were downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 2008	Flood	Westlands	$5,000	Heavy rain resulted in flooding at the intersection of Interstate 495 and Route 3. Several cars stalled and were unable to continue across the intersection with water halfway up the tires of the cars.
June 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Westlands	$3,000	In Lowell, a tree and wires were down at Andover St at Trull Ln and Chelmsford St at Manufacturers St.
March 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Westlands	$3,000	In Lowell, a tree was down on a house on Warwick Street.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Westlands	$2,000	A tree on Foster Road was downed by thunderstorm winds blocking the road.
September 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Westlands	$500	In Lowell, there were wires down on Monadnock Ave.
July 2017	Flood	Westlands	-	At 340 PM EST, an amateur radio operator reported flooding on Fletcher Street in Chelmsford.

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
Highlands	1.1 miles	48
Princeton Village	1.3 miles	48
Middlesex Village	1.4 miles	48
Chelmsford Center	1.5 miles	41
Ayres City	1.7 miles	48
Chelmsford	1.8 miles	41
Lowell	1.8 miles	48
Bleachery	2.2 miles	48

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 Q122595636

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 611888. 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.