FEMA Records
10
Low volume
Montana · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Sweet Grass County, MT
10 FEMA disaster declarations (1997-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Fire.
- 10
- FEMA declarations
- 6
- Major disasters
- 8
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Fire
- Top hazard
The verdict
Sweet Grass County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 10 declarations, more than 10% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 9% below the Montana county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 8%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 8%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 10
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 10
- 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.
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 30097 · Sweet Grass County 10 declarations · rank 2938/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 10
- MAJOR-MID 60%
- RANK-LOWER #2,938
- PHOTO-FINISH Cheyenne
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Fire
- VS-ST-BELOW -9%
Nearest declaration peer: Cheyenne, NE (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Montana state profile
Sweet Grass County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Sweet Grass County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Cheyenne · near 10
Cheyenne · near
10 declarations
- Clinton · near 10
Clinton · near
10 declarations
- Golden Valley · near 10
Golden Valley · near
10 declarations
- Sweet Grass · this county 10
Sweet Grass · this county
10 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Sweet Grass County carries 10 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2938 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Sweet Grass County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Sweet Grass County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Sweet Grass County
10 10th percentile higher than 10% 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
Sweet Grass County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Sweet Grass County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $3.4M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Very High), while Wildfire carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low). 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 Sweet Grass County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's National Risk Index places this county in the low end of the national distribution, composite score 8.1/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $5.9M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Very Low) and community resilience (Relatively Moderate). Even the county's top-rated hazard, Wildfire, only reaches Relatively Low on FEMA's scale, none of the 18 modeled hazards stand out here. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 807 years here.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 10 claims and $419.1K 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 Montana county averages 11.0 federal declaration records, while Sweet Grass County has 10. The gap is 9% 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.
48 /100
Historical Activity Index
Moderate historical activity
Sweet Grass County, MT · 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
7/30
10 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.5x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
11/25
10 declarations (0.9x state county average of 11)
Major Disaster Share High
15/25
6 of 10 declarations are major disasters (60%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Sweet Grass County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Sweet Grass 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
60%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
8
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Sweet Grass 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 Low | roughly once every 807 years |
| Avalanche | Very Low | roughly once every 8 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | an average of 2.3 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 203 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 23 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 2.4 times per year |
| Hail | Very Low | an average of 1.3 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 36 times per year |
| Drought | Very Low | 66 modeled event-days per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 0.7 modeled event-days per year |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 67 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 16 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Volcanic Activity | No Rating | roughly once every 10,000 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Fire 3
Biological 2
Severe Storm 2
Straight-Line Winds 1
Flood 1
Hurricane 1
What Fire declarations mean here
Fire is the most frequent declaration type on Sweet Grass 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 - 6 60.0%
of all 10 declarations
Emergency - 2 20.0%
of all 10 declarations
Fire Management - 2 20.0%
of all 10 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 2000 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 10 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 10 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4902 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Straight-Line Winds | 2026-04-07 |
| 4655 | SEVERE STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2022-06-16 |
| 4508 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-31 |
| 3476 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 1996 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-06-17 |
| 2671 | DERBY FIRE | FM | Fire | 2006-08-30 |
| 3253 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 2488 | MT-HOBBLE FIRE-08/07/2003 | FM | Fire | 2003-08-11 |
| 1340 | WILDFIRES | DR | Fire | 2000-08-30 |
| 1183 | SEVERE STORMS,ICE JAMS, SNOW MELT, FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-07-25 |
Storm Events in Montana
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Sweet Grass County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High Wind | 3,735 | 1 | 2 | $5.3M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 2,396 | 5 | 24 | $15.1M |
| Hail | 2,015 | 0 | 0 | $4.1M |
| Winter Storm | 1,502 | 13 | 18 | $11.2M |
| Heavy Snow | 796 | 5 | 3 | $143.0K |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
10
Total Paid
$419.1K
Avg Per Claim
$41.9K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 8.1/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$5.9M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very Low
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Wildfire Relatively Low
Avalanche Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Hail Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Drought Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Volcanic Activity 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: 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.
For Sweet Grass County the two measures on this page point the same way: Wildfire is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard (Relatively Low), and Fire declarations also lead its federal record. Where the model and the declaration history agree, the reading is comparatively straightforward, the hazard is both expected and repeatedly realised.
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
Sweet Grass County's closest FEMA peer: Allen County, OH
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Sweet Grass County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Sweet Grass County shows 10 FEMA declarations, led by Fire.
Similar Major-disaster share
Sweet Grass County: 6 of 10 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Sweet Grass County: NRI composite 8.1 (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 Sweet Grass County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Sweet Grass 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: 8.1 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 10. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 10 FEMA declarations, Sweet Grass 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 Sweet Grass County?
The most common disaster type in Sweet Grass County is Fire, with 3 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Severe Storm (2), Straight-Line Winds (1).
How does Sweet Grass County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Montana average?
The typical Montana county has 11.0 FEMA declaration records; Sweet Grass County has 10, or 9% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 52% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Sweet Grass County received?
Sweet Grass County has received 6 major disaster declarations, representing 60% of all 10 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Sweet Grass County filed?
Sweet Grass County has 10 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $419.1K in payments, with an average of $41.9K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Sweet Grass County?
No. In Sweet Grass County, Wildfire has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $3.4M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Sweet Grass County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Sweet Grass County was 2020, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1997 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Sweet Grass County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Sweet Grass County, Montana has an overall risk score of 8.1 out of 100 (Very Low). Social vulnerability here rates Very Low, while community resilience comes in at Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $5.9M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Sweet Grass County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Sweet Grass County is Wildfire (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Avalanche (Very Low) and Landslide (Very Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 807 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.
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 Sweet Grass County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Montana profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events