FEMA Records
31
High volume
Oklahoma · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Woodward County, OK
31 FEMA disaster declarations (1993-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Fire.
- 31
- FEMA declarations
- 14
- Major disasters
- 42
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Fire
- Top hazard
The verdict
Woodward County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 31 declarations, more than 88% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 4% below the Oklahoma county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 42%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 42%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 31
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 46
- 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 40153 · Woodward County 31 declarations · rank 347/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-LIGHT · RANK-MID · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 31
- MAJOR-LIGHT 45%
- RANK-MID #347
- PHOTO-FINISH Galveston
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Fire
- VS-ST-BELOW -4%
Nearest declaration peer: Galveston, TX (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Oklahoma state profile
Woodward County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Woodward County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Galveston · near 31
Galveston · near
31 declarations
- Orange · near 31
Orange · near
31 declarations
- Polk · near 31
Polk · near
31 declarations
- Woodward · this county 31
Woodward · this county
31 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Woodward County carries 31 FEMA declaration records, ranked 347 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Woodward County ranks in the national declaration registry
Woodward County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Woodward County
31 Top 12% higher than 88% 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
Woodward County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Woodward County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $4.2M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Low), while Ice Storm 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 Woodward County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's data shows an elevated National Risk Index composite of 41.6/100 for this county (Very Low rating). Expected Annual Loss comes in at Very Low (roughly $12.7M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability (Relatively Low) and community resilience (Very Low) both factor into how that raw exposure plays out on the ground. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Ice Storm stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 1 years here, based on 53 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 46 claims and $187.7K 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 Oklahoma county averages 32.2 federal declaration records, while Woodward County has 31. The gap is 4% 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.
63 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Woodward County, OK · 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
22/30
31 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.5x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
12/25
31 declarations (1.0x state county average of 32)
Major Disaster Share Moderate
11/25
14 of 31 declarations are major disasters (45%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Woodward County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Woodward 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
45%
Mixed major share
NRI risk score
42
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Woodward 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ice Storm | Relatively High | roughly once every 1 years |
| Wildfire | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 130 years |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 94 modeled event-days per year |
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 7.5 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 6.7 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 2.8 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 10 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 3.5 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 994 years |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 107 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 48 times per year |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Fire 11
Severe Storm 10
Severe Ice Storm 5
Biological 2
Snowstorm 1
Hurricane 1
Tornado 1
What Fire declarations mean here
Fire is the most frequent declaration type on Woodward County's record, 35% 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 45.2%
of all 31 declarations
Emergency - 9 29.0%
of all 31 declarations
Fire Management - 8 25.8%
of all 31 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 3 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2018 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 2 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 2 | |
| 2008 | 3 | |
| 2007 | 2 | |
Show 7 earlier declaration years
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1995 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 31 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 31 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5618 | 43 FIRE | FM | Fire | 2026-02-17 |
| 5491 | 57 FIRE | FM | Fire | 2024-04-06 |
| 4721 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2023-07-19 |
| 4587 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-24 |
| 3555 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-17 |
| 4530 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-05 |
| 3462 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 5304 | HIGHWAY 50 FIRE | FM | Fire | 2019-11-26 |
| 4438 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2019-06-01 |
| 4373 | WILDFIRES | DR | Fire | 2018-06-25 |
| 5231 | 34 FIRE COMPLEX | FM | Fire | 2018-04-13 |
| 5177 | NW OKLAHOMA WILDFIRE OUTBREAK COMPLEX | FM | Fire | 2017-03-07 |
| 4299 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2017-02-10 |
| 5122 | 350 FIRE COMPLEX | FM | Fire | 2016-04-05 |
| 4109 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2013-04-08 |
| 3316 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Storm | 2011-02-02 |
| 3308 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Storm | 2010-01-30 |
| 3305 | RECORD SNOW AND NEAR RECORD SNOW | EM | Snowstorm | 2009-06-23 |
| 1803 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-10-09 |
| 2756 | QUINLAN FIRE | FM | Fire | 2008-03-21 |
Show 11 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2746 | SOUTH WOODWARD FIRE | FM | Fire | 2008-02-25 |
| 3280 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2007-12-10 |
| 1712 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-07-07 |
| 3272 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2007-01-14 |
| 1623 | EXTREME WILDFIRE THREAT | DR | Fire | 2006-01-10 |
| 3219 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-05 |
| 1401 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2002-02-01 |
| 1384 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2001-06-29 |
| 3118 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARD | EM | Fire | 1996-02-27 |
| 1058 | TORNADOES, SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 1995-06-26 |
| 991 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1993-05-12 |
Storm Events in Oklahoma
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Woodward County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 5,894 | 0 | 1 | $19.8M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 5,592 | 6 | 36 | $199.5M |
| Drought | 2,935 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Heat | 2,134 | 7 | 428 | $0 |
| Excessive Heat | 1,771 | 2 | 401 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
46
Total Paid
$187.7K
Avg Per Claim
$4.1K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 41.6/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$12.7M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Ice Storm Relatively High
Wildfire Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Moderate
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Landslide Very Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Hurricane Very Low
Lightning 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: Ice Storm
Ice storms load power lines and tree limbs with accumulating freezing rain until they fail. The characteristic cost is infrastructure and multi-day power loss across a wide area rather than structural damage to buildings, which is why their consequences often outlast the weather that caused them.
Worth noting for Woodward County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Ice Storm 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
Woodward County's closest FEMA peer: Pender County, NC
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Woodward County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Woodward County shows 31 FEMA declarations, led by Fire.
Similar Major-disaster share
Woodward County: 14 of 31 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Woodward County: NRI composite 41.6 (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 Woodward County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Woodward 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: 41.6 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 31. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 31 FEMA declarations, Woodward 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 Woodward County?
The most common disaster type in Woodward County is Fire, with 11 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (10), Severe Ice Storm (5), Biological (2).
How does Woodward County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Oklahoma average?
The typical Oklahoma county has 32.2 FEMA declaration records; Woodward County has 31, or 4% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 50% higher. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Woodward County received?
Woodward County has received 14 major disaster declarations, representing 45% of all 31 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Woodward County filed?
Woodward County has 46 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $187.7K in payments, with an average of $4.1K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Woodward County?
No. In Woodward County, Ice Storm has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $4.2M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Woodward County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Woodward County was 2008, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1993 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Woodward County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Woodward County, Oklahoma has an overall risk score of 41.6 out of 100 (Very Low). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively Low, while community resilience comes in at Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $12.7M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Woodward County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Woodward County as of the latest release is Ice Storm (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Wildfire (Relatively Moderate) and Drought (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts ice storm here at roughly once every 1 years, drawn from 53 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.
FEMA OpenFEMA declarations + NRI for Woodward County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Oklahoma profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events