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

Whitcomb Summit, Massachusetts

39 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Florida town. It lies in ZIP code area 01247. It stands on Whitcomb Hill. The Survey maps it on the North Adams quadrangle.

Whitcomb Summit within Berkshire County

Then and now

1886 to 1997

The same ground, surveyed 111 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Whitcomb Summit, surveyed 1997

Topographic sheet of Whitcomb Summit, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

39 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

20 since 2006

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 20 fires within 5 miles of Whitcomb Summit between 2006 and 2020, burning about 33 acres in total. None started naturally. None 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	11
Smoking	5
Recreation and ceremony	2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1
Equipment and vehicle use	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
5 August 2016	Equipment and vehicle use	10 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 July 2016	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 May 2015	Smoking	5.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
25 May 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
11 May 2015	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 April 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
28 April 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
24 April 2017	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Berkshire County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 669 shown

Museums hold 669 specimens collected within 10 miles of Whitcomb Summit between 1828 and 1975: 292 Plantae, 183 Fungi, 173 Animalia, 11 Protozoa, 7 Unrecorded, 3 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A K Harrison, A Schwartz, A. K. Harrison 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
Lycopodium annotinum var. pungens (Desv.) La Pylaie ex Desv.	1898	Kofoid, C.A.	North Adams.
Carex aestivalis M.A.Curtis ex A.Gray	1828	Collector unknown	Saddle Mountain, near Williamstown.
Carex emmonsii var. muhlenbergii (A.Gray ex Torrey) Rettig	1828	Collector unspecified	Williamstown. [Inferred locality from precise loc.]
Cystopteris bulbifera (L.) Bernh.	1828	Collector unspecified
Dryopteris goldiana (Hook. ex Goldie) A.Gray	1828	Collector unspecified
Tilia americana L.	1828	Collector unspecified
Coptis trifolia (L.) Salisb.	1855	Smer	Williamstown Map - Mt. Greylock
Carex brunnescens (Pers.) Poir.	1858	W. Boott	Saddle Mountain, Williamstown.
Viola selkirkii Pursh ex Goldie	1859	W. P. Alcott	Williamstown
Asclepias exaltata L.	1861	Francis H. Snow	Williamstown
Puccinia grossulariae Lagerh.	1898	Churchill	Adams
Strix nebulosa nebulosa J.R.Forster, 1772	1898	M. E. Pearce	Williamstown

All 669 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 11 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 11 workings within 5 miles of Whitcomb Summit: 4 past producers, 3 producers, 2 occurrences, 1 plant. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Talc-Soapstone, Limestone, General, Stone, Crushed/Broken, 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.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Adams Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Plant
North Adams Lime Quarry	Limestone, General	Producer	Stratabound
North Adams Lime Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
North Adams Lime Quarry	Limestone, General	Producer	Stratabound
North Adams Lime Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Talc Prospect	Talc-Soapstone	Occurrence	Metamorphic
Talc Prospect	Talc-Soapstone	Prospect
Talc Quarry	Talc-Soapstone	Occurrence	Metamorphic
Talc Quarry	Talc-Soapstone	Producer	Metamorphic
Talc Quarry	Talc-Soapstone	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Berkshire County

Storms nearby

1 since 2019

The National Weather Service names Whitcomb Summit in 1 storm report between 2019 and 2019: 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
September 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitcomb Summit	-	Trees and wires were downed.

Every storm recorded in Berkshire 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
Eastern Summit	1.2 miles	39
Florida	1.6 miles	39
Hoosac Tunnel	2.0 miles	34
West Summit	2.4 miles	39
Drury	2.8 miles	34
Briggsville	3.7 miles	39
North Adams	4.7 miles	39
Houghtonville	4.8 miles	39

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 Q122569518

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 607816. 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.