Fire disasters in the United States

How common are Fire disasters in the U.S.?

Declarations cluster heavily in a small set of states. The three states with the most fire declarations on record are CA (298 declarations), TX (270 declarations), WA (147 declarations), a reflection of underlying hazard climatology, dense exposed population, and decades of development in vulnerable zones. States with the fewest declarations, including PR (1), RI (1), WI (1), though even a low count there can mean a single catastrophic event crossed the federal threshold.

The declaration timeline is dominated by a handful of catastrophic years. The peak year on record was 2011, with 114 fire declarations issued that single year, a clustering driven by major multi-state events and the federal government's declaration cadence. The most recent year on record is 2026, with 37 declarations. Trends over the 73+ year history reflect multi-decadal hazard cycles, warming-related shifts in event severity, and an expanding, more disaster-prone built environment.

FEMA has issued 1,755 federal disaster declarations classified as fire between 1953 and 2026, affecting 44 states and territories. Each declaration represents a formal federal recognition that an event exceeded state and local response capacity, unlocking Public Assistance, Individual Assistance, or Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding depending on the declaration class (DR, EM, or FM). Raw declaration counts therefore measure the federal response footprint, which is a lagging and thresholded indicator: smaller events handled entirely at the state level never appear, and declaration thresholds have been recalibrated over the dataset's multi-decade history.