FEMA Records
6
Low volume
Idaho · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Owyhee County, ID
6 FEMA disaster declarations (1965-2020), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 6
- FEMA declarations
- 4
- Major disasters
- 44
- NRI risk · Relatively Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Start with the local benchmark for Owyhee County: 6 FEMA declaration records are 28% below the Idaho county mean, even though the count is higher than 3% 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 44%.
- Safer than 44%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 6
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 2
- biological declarations, the most common hazard here
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 16073 · Owyhee County 6 declarations · rank 3154/3,266
DECL-LIGHT · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-MODERATE · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-LIGHT 6
- MAJOR-MID 67%
- RANK-LOWER #3,154
- PHOTO-FINISH Summit
- NRI-LOW 44
- ACT-MODERATE Moderate
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -28%
Nearest declaration peer: Summit, CO (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Idaho state profile
Owyhee County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Owyhee County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Lake · near 6
Lake · near
6 declarations
- Lander · near 6
Lander · near
6 declarations
- Owyhee · this county 6
Owyhee · this county
6 declarations
- Summit · near 6
Summit · near
6 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Owyhee County carries 6 FEMA declaration records, ranked 3154 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Owyhee County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Owyhee County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Owyhee County
6 3rd percentile higher than 3% 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
Owyhee County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Owyhee County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $5.2M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Very High), while Wildfire 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 Owyhee County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's data shows an elevated National Risk Index composite of 44.1/100 for this county (Relatively Low rating). Expected Annual Loss comes in at Very Low (roughly $8.5M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability (Very High) and community resilience (Very Low) both factor into how that raw exposure plays out on the ground. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Wildfire carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 61 years here.
Reading the federal records together
No paid-claim row for this county appears in the NFIP county table used by PlainHazard. That absence is not evidence that flooding never occurred: the register observes claims under federal flood-insurance policies, not uninsured losses, emergency reports, or every flood outside the program. The FEMA declaration history below is therefore the available federal-action record on this page.
Start with the state benchmark: a Idaho county averages 8.3 federal declaration records, while Owyhee County has 6. The gap is 28% 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.
40 /100
Historical Activity Index
Moderate historical activity
Owyhee 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) Low
4/30
6 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.3x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
9/25
6 declarations (0.7x state county average of 8)
Major Disaster Share High
17/25
4 of 6 declarations are major disasters (67%)
Hazard Diversity High
10/20
4 different disaster types declared in Owyhee County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Owyhee 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
67%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
44
Relatively Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Owyhee 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Wildfire | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 61 years |
| Avalanche | Relatively Low | roughly once every 100 years |
| Landslide | Relatively Low | an average of 1.6 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 12 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 2.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Volcanic Activity | Very Low | roughly once every 3,333 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 429 years |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 18 years |
| Drought | Very Low | 94 modeled event-days per year |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 23 times per year |
| Hail | Very Low | roughly once every 7 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | roughly once every 5 years |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | roughly once every 9 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Biological 2
Severe Storm 2
Hurricane 1
Flood 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Owyhee 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 - 4 66.7%
of all 6 declarations
Emergency - 2 33.3%
of all 6 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1965 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 6 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 6 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4534 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-09 |
| 3467 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 1630 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2006-02-27 |
| 3244 | HURRICANE KATRINA | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1154 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, MUD AND LANDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-04 |
| 186 | HEAVY RAINS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1964-12-31 |
Storm Events in Idaho
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Owyhee 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
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Low
Score: 44.1/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$8.5M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Wildfire Relatively Moderate
Avalanche Relatively Low
Landslide Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Volcanic Activity Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Drought Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Hail Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Tornado 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: Wildfire
Wildfire risk in the model reflects fuel, terrain, weather and how much development sits in the wildland-urban interface. It is one of the few hazards where the exposure is materially changed by land management and building choices, not only by where the county happens to be.
Worth noting for Owyhee County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Wildfire 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
Owyhee County's closest FEMA peer: Campbell County, WY
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Owyhee County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Owyhee County shows 6 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Owyhee County: 4 of 6 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Owyhee County: NRI composite 44.1 (Relatively 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 Owyhee County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Owyhee 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: 44.1 (Relatively Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 6. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
FEMA's National Risk Index flags Wildfire 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).
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common disaster type in Owyhee County?
The most common disaster type in Owyhee County is Severe Storm, with 2 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Hurricane (1), Flood (1).
How does Owyhee County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Idaho average?
The typical Idaho county has 8.3 FEMA declaration records; Owyhee County has 6, or 28% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 71% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Owyhee County received?
Owyhee County has received 4 major disaster declarations, representing 67% of all 6 disaster declarations.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Owyhee County?
No. In Owyhee County, Wildfire has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $5.2M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Owyhee County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Owyhee County was 2020, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1965 to 2020.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Owyhee County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Owyhee County, Idaho has an overall risk score of 44.1 out of 100 (Relatively Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Very High; on community resilience, Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $8.5M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Owyhee County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Owyhee County as of the latest release is Wildfire (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Avalanche (Relatively Low) and Landslide (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 61 years. 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.
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 Owyhee County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Idaho profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events