Cactus Flat, South Dakota

6 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1955 and the latest in 1980. It stands in the Northwest Jackson unorganized territory. It lies in ZIP code area 57567. The Survey maps it on the Cottonwood SW quadrangle. It stands 2,500 feet above sea level.

Cactus Flat within Jackson County

Topographic sheets covering this place

4 surveys from 6 printed 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.

1955 USGS Martin quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1958 USGS Martin quadrangle1:250000
1960 USGS Cottonwood SW quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
1980 USGS Kadoka quadrangle1:100000

Fires near this place

25 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 25 fires within 5 miles of Cactus Flat between 1996 and 2020, burning about 1,580 acres in total. 8 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
Natural	8
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Debris and open burning	3
Recreation and ceremony	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Smoking	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
17 September 2008	Recreation and ceremony	2.0 acres	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	not named
17 September 2008	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	not named
16 September 2018	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Nebraska National Forest	MM 133
5 August 2003	Equipment and vehicle use	108 acres	Badlands National Park	MILE 129
5 August 2003	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	106 acres	Nebraska National Forest	129
31 August 2006	Natural	75 acres	Nebraska National Forest	HODGE
20 August 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4.0 acres	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	not named
14 August 2006	Natural	113 acres	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Jackson 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
Interior	8.9 miles	6
Cottonwood	9.1 miles	6
Weta	10.3 miles	6
Sevenmile Corner	12.4 miles	6
Philip Junction	15.3 miles	6
Kadoka Junction	19.7 miles	6
Kadoka	20.4 miles	6
Potato Creek	21.4 miles	6

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.

Wikipedia article on Cactus Flat	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q15206686	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 1261390. 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.