FEMA Records
23
Above median
California · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Siskiyou County, CA
23 FEMA disaster declarations (1965-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Moderate. Most common hazard: Fire.
- 23
- FEMA declarations
- 14
- Major disasters
- 89
- NRI risk · Relatively Moderate
- Fire
- Top hazard
The verdict
Siskiyou County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 23 declarations, more than 62% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 19% below the California county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county in the riskiest 11%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Riskiest 11%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Moderate
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 23
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 67
- NFIP flood insurance claims filed
FEMA's National Risk Index and its declaration registry are separate measures. This county's registry includes Fire Management Assistance (FM) records, which are not presidential disaster declarations, alongside Major Disaster (DR) and Emergency (EM) records.
How does Siskiyou County compare?
Siskiyou County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time
23 Top 38% higher than 62% 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
Siskiyou County's FEMA Risk Index score
FEMA National Risk Index composite score vs. the California county average
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Siskiyou County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $31.2M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Drought carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High). 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 Siskiyou County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 67 paid claims, totaling $469.5K. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $7.0K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a California county averages 28.5 federal declaration records, while Siskiyou County has 23. The gap is 19% 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.
FEMA National Risk Index
This county sits among the highest-risk counties nationally on FEMA's National Risk Index, a composite score of 89.0/100 (Relatively Moderate). Expected Annual Loss is rated Relatively Moderate (roughly $57.0M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability reads Relatively High and community resilience Relatively Moderate, both critical modifiers of realized harm here. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Drought stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at 74 modeled event-days per year here, based on 2,779 historical events on record.
Declaration frequency
Nationally, Siskiyou County's 23 FEMA records form a high-volume history; within California, however, the count is 19% below the county mean. 14 entries carry the Major Disaster classification. The largest incident group is Fire, appearing 7 times. The full 59-year record averages 0.4 declarations annually. A DR label alone does not say whether Individual Assistance, Public Assistance, or both followed.
57 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Siskiyou County, CA · 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) High
17/30
23 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.1x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
10/25
23 declarations (0.8x state county average of 29)
Major Disaster Share High
15/25
14 of 23 declarations are major disasters (61%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Siskiyou County
Historical Declaration Activity
Activity Band
High
vs. California Avg
-19%
State avg: 28.5
vs. National Avg
+11%
National avg: 20.7
Avg Per Year
0.4
Over 59 years
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Siskiyou 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
61%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
89
Relatively Moderate
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Siskiyou 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drought | Relatively High | 74 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively High | roughly once every 129 years |
| Volcanic Activity | Relatively High | roughly once every 417 years |
| Landslide | Relatively Moderate | an average of 7.5 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Moderate | an average of 1 time per year |
| Earthquake | Relatively Low | roughly once every 50 years |
| Avalanche | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 30 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 5.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 30 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 12 times per year |
| Hail | Very Low | roughly once every 9 years |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | roughly once every 188 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | roughly once every 24 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 24 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Fire 7
Flood 6
Severe Storm 5
Hurricane 2
Biological 2
Drought 1
What Fire declarations mean here
Fire is the most frequent declaration type on Siskiyou County's record, 30% of its declarations. Wildfire is the one hazard here with its own dedicated federal instrument: the Fire Management Assistance Grant, which appears in this data as an FM record. An FMAG can be authorised while a fire is still burning, on a timescale of hours, because its purpose is to reimburse the cost of fighting a fire that threatens to become a major disaster.
That distinction matters when comparing counties. An FM declaration is not a presidential major disaster declaration and does not carry the same assistance programmes, so a fire-heavy county's total is not directly comparable with a hurricane-heavy county's total unless the declaration types are separated, which is why they are listed separately on this page.
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 - 14 60.9%
of all 23 declarations
Fire Management - 6 26.1%
of all 23 declarations
Emergency - 3 13.0%
of all 23 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 3 | |
| 2018 | 1 | |
| 2017 | 2 | |
| 2014 | 2 | |
| 2010 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1995 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
Show 3 earlier declaration years
| 1974 | 1 | |
| 1970 | 1 | |
| 1965 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 23 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 23 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4750 | TROPICAL STORM HILARY | DR | Hurricane | 2023-11-21 |
| 4683 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2023-01-14 |
| 5450 | MILL FIRE | FM | Fire | 2022-09-02 |
| 5393 | LAVA FIRE | FM | Fire | 2021-06-29 |
| 4569 | WILDFIRES | DR | Fire | 2020-10-16 |
| 5361 | SLATER FIRE | FM | Fire | 2020-09-09 |
| 4482 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-22 |
| 3428 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 5250 | KLAMATHON FIRE | FM | Fire | 2018-07-05 |
| 4308 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2017-04-01 |
| 4301 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2017-02-14 |
| 5079 | BOLES FIRE | FM | Fire | 2014-09-15 |
| 5068 | OREGON GULCH FIRE | FM | Fire | 2014-08-02 |
| 1884 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND DEBRIS AND MUD FLOWS | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-03-08 |
| 1628 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, MUDSLIDES, AND LANDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2006-02-03 |
| 3248 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1155 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, MUD AND LANDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-04 |
| 1046 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING LANDSLIDES, MUD FLOW | DR | Severe Storm | 1995-03-12 |
| 979 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, MUD & LAND SLIDES, & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1993-02-03 |
| 3023 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1977-01-20 |
Show 3 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 412 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1974-01-25 |
| 283 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1970-02-16 |
| 183 | HEAVY RAINS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1964-12-24 |
Storm Events in California
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Siskiyou County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High Wind | 4,070 | 13 | 27 | $228.2M |
| Flood | 3,132 | 26 | 25 | $985.1M |
| Heavy Snow | 1,814 | 6 | 0 | $1.6M |
| Dense Fog | 1,605 | 52 | 148 | $2.8M |
| Drought | 1,421 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
67
Total Paid
$469.5K
Avg Per Claim
$7.0K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Moderate
Score: 89.0/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Moderate
$57.0M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Relatively High
Wildfire Relatively High
Volcanic Activity Relatively High
Landslide Relatively Moderate
Riverine Flooding Relatively Moderate
Earthquake Relatively Low
Avalanche Relatively Moderate
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Lightning Relatively Low
Hail Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Strong Wind 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: Drought
Drought is the slowest of the modeled hazards and the least visible: it does its damage to agriculture, water supply and soil over seasons rather than hours, so it rarely produces the kind of single-day damage that drives a disaster declaration. FEMA scores it in event-days per year rather than discrete events for exactly that reason.
Worth noting for Siskiyou County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Drought carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively High), while the county's declaration history is led by Fire. 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
Siskiyou County's closest FEMA peer: District of Columbia, DC
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Siskiyou County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Siskiyou County shows 23 FEMA declarations, led by Fire.
Similar Major-disaster share
Siskiyou County: 14 of 23 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Siskiyou County: NRI composite 89.0 (Relatively Moderate).
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 Siskiyou County - capture-dated entries only.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Siskiyou County's NFIP claims file (67 claims) and FEMA declaration history measure different federal records - this guide separates them from modeled NRI risk.
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 Siskiyou County?
The most common disaster type in Siskiyou County is Fire, with 7 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (6), Severe Storm (5), Hurricane (2).
How does Siskiyou County's FEMA declaration record compare with the California average?
The typical California county has 28.5 FEMA declaration records; Siskiyou County has 23, or 19% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 11% higher. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Siskiyou County received?
Siskiyou County has received 14 major disaster declarations, representing 61% of all 23 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Siskiyou County filed?
Siskiyou County has 67 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $469.5K in payments, with an average of $7.0K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Siskiyou County?
No. In Siskiyou County, Drought has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $31.2M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Siskiyou County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Siskiyou County was 2020, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1965 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Siskiyou County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Siskiyou County, California has an overall risk score of 89.0 out of 100 (Relatively Moderate). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively High, while community resilience comes in at Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Moderate, representing $57.0M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Siskiyou County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Siskiyou County as of the latest release is Drought (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Wildfire (Relatively High) and Volcanic Activity (Relatively High). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 74 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 2,779 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 Siskiyou County
Against a California county mean of 29 declarations, Siskiyou County, CA records 23, or 19% fewer. PlainHazard classifies that historical total as high activity.
- Major Disaster is the largest group (14 of 23) in a declaration history that remains below its state benchmark; frequency here is not a forecast. California overview
- Nationally the county exceeds 62% of recorded county totals, but its own California benchmark is higher. The ranking keeps those two contexts separate. Most-disaster rankings
- Use the data guide to separate this mid-volume insurance-claims file from declaration counts and modeled NRI risk. 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.