FEMA Records
12
Low volume
Idaho · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Boundary County, ID
12 FEMA disaster declarations (1967-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 12
- FEMA declarations
- 10
- Major disasters
- 26
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Boundary County. Its 12 FEMA declarations are 44% above the Idaho county mean and exceed the count for 14% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 26%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 26%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 12
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 3
- 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.
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 16021 · Boundary County 12 declarations · rank 2790/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-MID 12
- MAJOR-HEAVY 83%
- RANK-LOWER #2,790
- PHOTO-FINISH Johnson
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-ABOVE +44%
Nearest declaration peer: Johnson, KS (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Idaho state profile
Boundary County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Boundary County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Boundary · this county 12
Boundary · this county
12 declarations
- Crane · near 12
Crane · near
12 declarations
- Johnson · near 12
Johnson · near
12 declarations
- Seward · near 12
Seward · near
12 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Boundary County carries 12 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2790 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Boundary County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Boundary County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Boundary County
12 14th percentile higher than 14% 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 · 2026-08-25
Boundary County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Boundary County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $4.6M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Very High), while Landslide carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate). EAL and risk score use different inputs; they need not agree.
Source: FEMA National Risk Index (December 2025 release) - Expected Annual Loss vs composite risk rating by hazard.
What does Boundary County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 26.1/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $6.8M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively High social-vulnerability score and Very Low community-resilience score. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Landslide carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 1 years here.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 3 claims and $8.4K 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.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Boundary County's 12 federal records stand 44% above the Idaho county mean of 8.3. That comparison describes how often federal action was recorded, including any Major Disaster, Emergency, and Fire Management entries shown on this page; it does not convert the count into future probability.
66 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Boundary County, ID · 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) Moderate
9/30
12 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.6x national county average)
County Disaster Density High
18/25
12 declarations (1.4x state county average of 8)
Major Disaster Share Very High
21/25
10 of 12 declarations are major disasters (83%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Boundary County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Boundary 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
83%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
26
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Boundary 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Landslide | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 1 years |
| Avalanche | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 10 years |
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1,051 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 27 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 1.4 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 2.8 modeled event-days per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 705 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 21 times per year |
| Drought | Very Low | 22 modeled event-days per year |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | roughly once every 9 years |
| Hail | Very Low | roughly once every 7 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 80 years |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 67 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 4
Biological 2
Flood 2
Straight-Line Winds 1
Hurricane 1
Volcanic Eruption 1
Fire 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Boundary County's record, 33% of its declarations. In FEMA's vocabulary this covers convective weather: thunderstorm straight-line winds, large hail, and the multi-day outbreaks that often carry embedded tornadoes. Activity is heaviest in spring and summer, though the season varies by region.
These events behave differently from a hurricane on paper. Damage tends to be distributed along a storm track rather than concentrated on a coastline, and a declaration typically follows an outbreak that crossed several counties over a few days, not a single point of impact. Because the qualifying threshold is the cost of uninsured public and individual losses rather than storm intensity, two similar storms can produce a declaration in one year and none in another.
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).
Major Disaster - 10 83.3%
of all 12 declarations
Emergency - 2 16.7%
of all 12 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 1 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 2 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1980 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
| 1967 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 12 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 12 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4905 | STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Straight-Line Winds | 2026-04-07 |
| 4534 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-09 |
| 3467 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4313 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2017-05-18 |
| 4246 | SEVERE STORM AND STRAIGHT-LINE WIND | DR | Severe Storm | 2015-12-23 |
| 3244 | HURRICANE KATRINA | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1177 | SEVERE STORMS, SNOWMELT, LAND/MUD SLIDES, FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-06-13 |
| 1154 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, MUD AND LANDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-04 |
| 1102 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1996-02-11 |
| 624 | VOLCANIC ERUPTION, MT. ST. HELENS | DR | Volcanic Eruption | 1980-05-22 |
| 415 | SEVERE STORMS, SNOWMELT & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1974-01-25 |
| 231 | FOREST FIRES | DR | Fire | 1967-08-30 |
Storm Events in Idaho
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Boundary County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heavy Snow | 1,495 | 1 | 13 | $100.9M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 1,087 | 9 | 26 | $3.6M |
| Winter Storm | 492 | 4 | 15 | $1.0M |
| High Wind | 396 | 4 | 6 | $10.6M |
| Winter Weather | 297 | 10 | 15 | $1.7M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
3
Total Paid
$8.4K
Avg Per Claim
$2.8K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 26.1/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$6.8M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Landslide Relatively Moderate
Avalanche Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Drought Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Hail Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
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: Landslide
Landslide risk is a function of slope, soil and water, so it is usually a SECOND-ORDER hazard: it is triggered by the rainfall, snowmelt, wildfire burn scars or seismic shaking that came first. That is why a county can carry high landslide exposure whose realized damage is recorded under a flood or storm declaration instead.
Worth noting for Boundary County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Landslide carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Moderate), while the county's declaration history is led by Severe Storm. 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
Boundary County's closest FEMA peer: Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, AK
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Boundary County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Boundary County shows 12 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Boundary County: 10 of 12 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Boundary County: NRI composite 26.1 (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 Boundary County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Boundary County: nearest out-of-state National Risk Index composite and nearest FEMA declaration count (floor ≥5 records). Record similarity only, not a forecast of the next hazard.
Similar NRI composite
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA NRI score. This county: 26.1 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 12. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 12 FEMA declarations, Boundary County sits in the high-volume declaration band - see how that count ranks against other U.S. counties.
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).
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common disaster type in Boundary County?
The most common disaster type in Boundary County is Severe Storm, with 4 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Flood (2), Straight-Line Winds (1).
How does Boundary County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Idaho average?
FEMA lists 12 declaration records for Boundary County. That is 44% above the Idaho county mean of 8.3. Its count is also 42% below the national county mean of 20.7. A larger declaration history records more federal actions; it is not a forecast of the county's next hazard.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Boundary County received?
Boundary County has received 10 major disaster declarations, representing 83% of all 12 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Boundary County filed?
Boundary County has 3 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $8.4K in payments, with an average of $2.8K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Boundary County?
No. In Boundary County, Landslide has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $4.6M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Boundary County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Boundary County was 1997, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1967 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Boundary County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Boundary County, Idaho has an overall risk score of 26.1 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively High; on community resilience, Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $6.8M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Boundary County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Boundary County is Landslide (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Avalanche (Relatively Moderate) and Wildfire (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts landslide here at roughly once every 1 years. FEMA derives these ratings from historical event frequency, the assets exposed, and the community's vulnerability profile.
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.
FEMA OpenFEMA declarations + NRI for Boundary County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Idaho profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events