FEMA Records
13
Low volume
Texas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Upton County, TX
13 FEMA disaster declarations (1993-2021), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Fire.
- 13
- FEMA declarations
- 6
- Major disasters
- 8
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Fire
- Top hazard
The verdict
Upton County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 13 declarations, more than 17% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 38% below the Texas 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
- 13
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 4
- fire 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 48461 · Upton County 13 declarations · rank 2683/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-LIGHT · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 13
- MAJOR-LIGHT 46%
- RANK-LOWER #2,683
- PHOTO-FINISH Clarke
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Fire
- VS-ST-BELOW -38%
Nearest declaration peer: Clarke, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Texas state profile
Upton County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Upton County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Bristol (city) · near 13
Bristol (city) · near
13 declarations
- Clarke · near 13
Clarke · near
13 declarations
- Douglas · near 13
Douglas · near
13 declarations
- Upton · this county 13
Upton · this county
13 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Upton County carries 13 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2683 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Upton County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Upton County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Upton County
13 17th percentile higher than 17% 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
Upton County's FEMA Risk Index score
What does Upton 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 7.7/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $3.1M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Relatively High) and community resilience (Very Low). 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 66 modeled event-days per year here, based on 1,806 historical events on record.
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 Texas county averages 20.9 federal declaration records, while Upton County has 13. The gap is 38% 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.
44 /100
Historical Activity Index
Moderate historical activity
Upton County, TX · 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
13 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.6x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
8/25
13 declarations (0.6x state county average of 21)
Major Disaster Share Moderate
12/25
6 of 13 declarations are major disasters (46%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Upton County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Upton 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
46%
Mixed major share
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 Upton 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 | 66 modeled event-days per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3.3 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 633 years |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 4.8 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 5.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 174 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | an average of 1.2 times per year |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 43 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 3,484 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1 time per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 8 years |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 9 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Fire 4
Hurricane 3
Severe Ice Storm 2
Biological 2
Severe Storm 1
Drought 1
What Fire declarations mean here
Fire is the most frequent declaration type on Upton County's record, 31% 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).
Emergency - 7 53.8%
of all 13 declarations
Major Disaster - 6 46.2%
of all 13 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 3 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 13 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 13 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4586 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-19 |
| 3554 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-14 |
| 4485 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-25 |
| 3458 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 1999 | WILDFIRES | DR | Fire | 2011-07-01 |
| 3284 | WILDFIRES | EM | Fire | 2008-03-14 |
| 1624 | EXTREME WILDFIRE THREAT | DR | Fire | 2006-01-11 |
| 1606 | HURRICANE RITA | DR | Hurricane | 2005-09-24 |
| 3261 | HURRICANE RITA | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-21 |
| 3216 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-02 |
| 3142 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARDS | EM | Fire | 1999-09-01 |
| 1239 | TROPICAL STORM CHARLEY | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-08-26 |
| 3113 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARD | EM | Drought | 1993-09-10 |
Storm Events in Texas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Upton County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 14,072 | 0 | 15 | $7.4B |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 10,293 | 41 | 141 | $369.9M |
| Drought | 7,032 | 0 | 0 | $86.0K |
| Flash Flood | 4,728 | 338 | 24 | $47.6B |
| Heat | 4,079 | 119 | 405 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 7.7/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$3.1M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Relatively High
Hail Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Hurricane Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Landslide 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: 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 Upton 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
Upton County's closest FEMA peer: Elkhart County, IN
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Upton County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Upton County shows 13 FEMA declarations, led by Fire.
Similar Major-disaster share
Upton County: 6 of 13 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Upton County: NRI composite 7.7 (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 Upton County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Upton 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: 7.7 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 13. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 13 FEMA declarations, Upton 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 Upton County?
The most common disaster type in Upton County is Fire, with 4 declarations. Other disaster types include Hurricane (3), Severe Ice Storm (2), Biological (2).
How does Upton County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Texas average?
The typical Texas county has 20.9 FEMA declaration records; Upton County has 13, or 38% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 37% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Upton County received?
Upton County has received 6 major disaster declarations, representing 46% of all 13 disaster declarations.
What was the worst year for disasters in Upton County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Upton County was 2005, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1993 to 2021.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Upton County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Upton County, Texas has an overall risk score of 7.7 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Relatively High and community resilience is Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $3.1M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Upton County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Upton County as of the latest release is Drought (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Low) and Wildfire (Very Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 66 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 1,806 historical events on record. The underlying methodology weighs historical event frequency against 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 Upton County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Texas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events