FEMA Records
7
Low volume
Michigan · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Baraga County, MI
7 FEMA disaster declarations (1977-2020), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Flood.
- 7
- FEMA declarations
- 3
- Major disasters
- 11
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Flood
- Top hazard
The verdict
Start with the local benchmark for Baraga County: 7 FEMA declaration records are 30% below the Michigan county mean, even though the count is higher than 4% of counties in the national registry. On FEMA's distinct National Risk Index model, which combines expected loss with vulnerability and resilience, the county ranks safer than 11%.
- Safer than 11%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 7
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 6
- NFIP flood insurance claims filed
FEMA's National Risk Index and its declaration registry are separate measures. This county's registry includes Major Disaster (DR) and Emergency (EM) records; an EM authorizes a narrower set of federal assistance than a DR.
How does Baraga County compare?
Baraga County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time
7 4th percentile higher than 4% of 3,266 counties
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more counties. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 · 2026-08-03
Baraga County's FEMA Risk Index score
FEMA National Risk Index composite score vs. the Michigan county average
What does Baraga County's hazard record show?
Declaration frequency
The state comparison is the clearest context for Baraga County's moderate federal record. Its 7 declarations sit 30% below the Michigan county mean, with 3 Major Disaster entries among them. 2 records concern Flood, the file's most frequent incident type. Spread across 43 years, the registry rate is 0.2 per year. FEMA reports authorized programs separately from the DR, EM, and FM codes.
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's National Risk Index places this county in the low end of the national distribution, composite score 10.7/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $3.8M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Relatively High) and community resilience (Relatively High). Among the 18 modeled hazards, Cold Wave carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 4.8 times per year here, based on 91 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 6 claims and $14.3K paid in total. PlainHazard calls 1-49 claims a light registry record, a label for this dataset rather than a finding that flood exposure is low. A short claims history can also reflect insurance take-up, the period covered, or losses that were never insured.
Start with the state benchmark: a Michigan county averages 10.0 federal declaration records, while Baraga County has 7. The gap is 30% below that mean. Fewer entries indicate a quieter history of recorded federal actions, not immunity from a hazard and not a prediction about what happens next.
38 /100
Historical Activity Index
Moderate historical activity
Baraga County, MI · PlainHazard-derived composite from federal records
This 0–100 index is an explicit PlainHazard composite from FEMA declaration history only on the county surface (this DB has no county-level NOAA damage row) . It is not FEMA's National Risk Index, not a forecast, and not a safety, insurance, or preparedness rating. Open the calculator · Methodology
FEMA Declarations (1953–present) Low
5/30
7 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.3x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
9/25
7 declarations (0.7x state county average of 10)
Major Disaster Share Moderate
11/25
3 of 7 declarations are major disasters (43%)
Hazard Diversity High
13/20
5 different disaster types declared in Baraga County
Historical Declaration Activity
Activity Band
Moderate
vs. Michigan Avg
-30%
State avg: 10.0
vs. National Avg
-66%
National avg: 20.7
Avg Per Year
0.2
Over 43 years
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Baraga County
How to read this radar
Each axis: NRI risk rating (Very Low-Very High) on a 0-100 scale. Rounder = broad exposure; spiky = one or two hazards dominate.
Major Disaster share
43%
Mixed major share
NRI risk score
11
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Baraga County?
FEMA's National Risk Index models a historical event count and an annualized frequency for each hazard type. Most hazards are expressed as modeled occurrences per year; FEMA expresses drought and heat-wave frequency as event-days per year. These modeled frequencies are not forecasts.
| Hazard | NRI Risk Rating | Recurrence |
|---|---|---|
| Cold Wave | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.8 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 27 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 23 times per year |
| Coastal Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 73 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Drought | Very Low | 2.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 1,701 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 29 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 0.4 modeled event-days per year |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 18 years |
| Earthquake | No Rating | roughly once every 11,236 years |
| Hurricane | No Rating | roughly once every 174 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Biological 2
Flood 2
Hurricane 1
Snowstorm 1
Drought 1
What Flood declarations mean here
Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Baraga County's record, 29% of its declarations. Federal flood declarations cover two mechanisms that behave very differently: riverine flooding, which builds over days as a watershed drains and is usually forecast well in advance, and flash flooding, which can arrive in under an hour from rainfall that fell somewhere upstream.
Flood is also the one hazard class where a second federal dataset exists for the same events. The National Flood Insurance Program records what was actually paid on insured losses, so it measures a narrower thing than the declaration count: uninsured damage, and flooding outside mapped special flood hazard areas, never enters it. Reading the two together is more informative than either alone.
Declaration counts describe past federal action. They are a record of what was declared, not a forecast of future hazard probability.
Declaration Types
What DR / EM / FM mean
FEMA categorizes declarations as Major Disasters (DR), Emergencies (EM), or Fire Management Assistance (FM).
Emergency - 4 57.1%
of all 7 declarations
Major Disaster - 3 42.9%
of all 7 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 1978 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 7 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 7 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4494 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-27 |
| 3455 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4121 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2013-06-18 |
| 3225 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-07 |
| 1413 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2002-05-06 |
| 3057 | BLIZZARDS & SNOWSTORMS | EM | Snowstorm | 1978-01-27 |
| 3035 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1977-03-02 |
Storm Events in Michigan
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Baraga County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 3,010 | 10 | 18 | $173.8M |
| Winter Storm | 1,486 | 3 | 11 | $41.8M |
| Winter Weather | 1,254 | 21 | 38 | $892.0K |
| Hail | 962 | 0 | 0 | $77.1M |
| High Wind | 389 | 3 | 2 | $668.9M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
6
Total Paid
$14.3K
Avg Per Claim
$2.4K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 10.7/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$3.8M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Cold Wave Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Coastal Flooding Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Drought Very Low
Wildfire Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Earthquake No Rating
Hurricane No Rating
Source: FEMA National Risk Index (NRI) Ratings reflect relative scores among all US counties. Data: hazards.fema.gov/nri
The model's sharpest exposure here: Cold Wave
Cold Wave measures exposure to extreme cold rather than to snow. Its harm is concentrated in health effects, burst infrastructure and energy demand spikes, and it falls hardest where the building stock and the grid were not built with sustained cold in mind.
Worth noting for Baraga County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Cold Wave carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Moderate), while the county's declaration history is led by Flood. That is not a contradiction, the two measure genuinely different things. Declarations record federal ACTION, which requires damage costly enough to exceed state and local capacity; the Risk Index models EXPECTED annual loss across all 18 hazards whether or not any declaration ever followed. A hazard can be the county's largest modeled exposure and never once have driven a declaration.
National Risk Index ratings are modeled estimates of expected annual loss, not predictions of what will happen in any given year.
Data-matched county comparisons
Baraga County's closest FEMA peer: Malheur County, OR
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Baraga County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Baraga County shows 7 FEMA declarations, led by Flood.
Similar Major-disaster share
Baraga County: 3 of 7 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Baraga County: NRI composite 10.7 (Very Low).
How these peers are chosen
Cohort: Published U.S. county equivalents outside the source state or territory. Each metric keeps six ETL candidates; three unique destinations are shown after de-duplicating across axes. Declaration-volume ranking combines count and Major-disaster share and prefers a different leading incident type; Major-share ranks the Major fraction adjusted for volume; NRI ranks the modeled composite score only.
Retained FEMA snapshot feed for Baraga County - capture-dated entries only.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
FEMA's National Risk Index flags Cold Wave as the top modeled exposure here (Relatively Moderate); the guide explains how that model differs from declaration counts.
More PlainHazard guides
- Most disaster-prone counties - U.S. counties ranked by FEMA declaration totals.
- Understanding disaster data - declarations vs storm events vs NRI scores.
- Preparing for natural disasters - household checklist (not county-specific advice).
Related
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common disaster type in Baraga County?
The most common disaster type in Baraga County is Flood, with 2 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Hurricane (1), Snowstorm (1).
How does Baraga County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Michigan average?
The typical Michigan county has 10.0 FEMA declaration records; Baraga County has 7, or 30% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 66% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Baraga County received?
Baraga County has received 3 major disaster declarations, representing 43% of all 7 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Baraga County filed?
Baraga County has 6 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $14.3K in payments, with an average of $2.4K per claim.
What was the worst year for disasters in Baraga County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Baraga County was 2020, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1977 to 2020.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Baraga County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Baraga County, Michigan has an overall risk score of 10.7 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Relatively High and community resilience is Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $3.8M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Baraga County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Baraga County is Cold Wave (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Low) and Winter Weather (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts cold wave here at an average of 4.8 times per year, drawn from 91 historical events on record. These scores are based on FEMA's analysis of historical event frequency, exposed assets, and community vulnerability.
Data Sources & Methodology
Disaster declaration data comes from the FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 API, which includes all federally declared disasters, emergencies, and fire management assistance grants.
Storm event data is sourced from the NOAA Storm Events Database (2015-2025), which tracks significant weather events including thunderstorms, tornadoes, floods, and winter storms.
Flood insurance data comes from the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA claims dataset.
This data is provided for informational purposes only. FEMA disaster declarations represent federal response actions and may not capture all local emergencies or weather events.
What this means for Baraga County
Against a Michigan county mean of 10 declarations, Baraga County, MI records 7, or 30% fewer. PlainHazard classifies that historical total as moderate activity.
- Emergency is the largest group (4 of 7) in a declaration history that remains below its state benchmark; frequency here is not a forecast. Michigan overview
- Nationally the county exceeds 4% of recorded county totals, but its own Michigan benchmark is higher. The ranking keeps those two contexts separate. Most-disaster rankings
- A short NFIP claims file cannot establish low flood exposure; the data guide explains the limits of each federal measure. Disaster-data guide
A below-average federal record is not a safety guarantee. Use National Weather Service alerts and local emergency-management notices for present conditions, not this historical comparison.
PlainHazard derives this profile from FEMA's Disaster Declarations Summaries and National Risk Index data. The declaration comparison covers 3,266 U.S. counties and county equivalents in this database, refreshed as of 2026-08-03. Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
All federal data sources used on this page
- FEMA OpenFEMA, Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 - all federally-declared disasters for this county. fema.gov/openfema/disaster-declarations
- FEMA National Risk Index (NRI) - per-county per-hazard risk ratings and expected annual loss. hazards.fema.gov/nri
- NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database - state-level storm/severe-weather event records, 2015-2025. ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents
Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainHazard Editorial
Verify with FEMA → · Verify with FEMA NRI → · Verify with NOAA →
Every figure on PlainHazard is rendered directly from FEMA federal disaster data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or national statistics report, the data & editorial changelog, or report a data error.