BlockBefore

Mertens, Texas

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1985. It stands in the Hillsboro census division. It lies in ZIP code area 76666. The Survey maps it on the Mertens quadrangle. 144 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 538 feet above sea level.

Mertens within Hill County

Population over time

2 figures

Mertens grew from 125 to 144 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
2010125
2020144+19 (+15%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

4 surveys from 8 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.

Fires near this place

77 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 77 fires within 5 miles of Mertens between 2005 and 2020, burning about 604 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 2 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
Debris and open burning34
Missing data/not specified/undetermined19
Equipment and vehicle use16
Smoking3
Arson/incendiarism2
Power generation/transmission/distribution2
Natural1

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
9 September 2019Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceFM 308 HAY BALER FIRE
9 September 2016Debris and open burning1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceS. BERRY ST BURN BAN
9 September 2012Debris and open burning3.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceHOCKER GRASS
2 September 2012Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServicePERRY STRIPPER
19 September 2017Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceHWY 22 GRASS FIRE
18 September 2015Power generation/transmission/distribution1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceFM 308 - FIRE/POWERLINE
14 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undetermined5.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceM/A MERTANS FM 308 GRASS FIRE
14 September 2011Equipment and vehicle use22 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceFINN RD FIRE

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Hill County

Storms near this place

5 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Mertens in 5 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 2 flash flood, 2 tornado, 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
October 2015Flash FloodMertens$100,000Several roads were closed in southern Hill County.
April 2025Tornado (EFU)Mertens-Video of a brief tornado near Mertens that appeared to be over a field. No damage was reported, and this tornado was rated EF-Unknown.
March 1999Tornado (F0)Mertens-A tornado briefly touched down near Mertens High School. No damaged was reported.
December 1997Flash FloodMertens-Five to six feet of water covered Farm-to-Market Road 380 south of town.
April 1994HailMertens-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Hill 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
Brandon3.5 miles8
Irene4.8 miles8
Midway6.0 miles15
Lakenon6.8 miles15
Bynum8.2 miles14
Carls Corner9.3 miles15
Malone9.7 miles7
Mountain View10.2 miles15

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 MertensAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q970883The 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 1341393. 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.

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.