FEMA disaster type · OpenFEMA declarations
Terrorist disasters in the United States
FEMA disaster declarations classified as "Terrorist" from 2001 to 2013 - which states are hit most often and how the count has changed over time.
- 2
- FEMA declarations
- 2
- States affected
- 2001
- Earliest year
- 2013
- Latest year
The verdict
According to FEMA's disaster declaration history, terrorist ranks #26 of the 27 distinct disaster types the agency has declared, accounting for 0.0% of all 5,218 declarations on record. It is rarer than 96% of the other declaration types FEMA tracks, based on total historical volume.
- #26 of 27
- FEMA disaster types, by declaration volume
- 0.0%
- share of all 5,218 FEMA declarations
- 2
- terrorist declarations, 2001–2013
Ranking reflects the count of Presidentially declared federal disasters per OpenFEMA, not event severity or economic loss; a rare declaration type can still be individually catastrophic.
How does Terrorist compare?
Terrorist vs. every FEMA declaration type
Declaration volume across all tracked incident types
2 4th percentile higher than 4% of 27 disaster types
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more disaster types. 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 OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 · 2026-08-03
What shapes the terrorist record?
States with the most terrorist declarations
Wider bars = more FEMA declarations of this type
- Massachusetts
Massachusetts
1 declarations
- Virginia
Virginia
1 declarations
What this shows Massachusetts leads with 1 terrorist declarations among the states shown.
How common are Terrorist disasters in the U.S.?
With so few declarations on record, the year-by-year pattern is necessarily sparse. The peak year on record was 2001, with 1 terrorist 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 2013, with 1 declarations. Trends over the 12+ year history reflect how infrequently this disaster type crosses the federal declaration threshold at all.
FEMA has issued 2 federal disaster declarations classified as terrorist between 2001 and 2013, affecting 2 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.
This disaster type's footprint is thin and scattered across the map. The three states with the most terrorist declarations on record are MA (1 declarations), VA (1 declarations), consistent with how narrowly this hazard type is geographically concentrated.
What is actually in FEMA's terrorist file?
The complete OpenFEMA record is small enough to inspect title by title: 2 declaration rows resolve to 2 named records. A row is a federal administrative action, not necessarily a separate physical event.
- EXPLOSIONS: Massachusetts; Emergency (EM); 2013-04-17.
- FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS: Virginia; Major Disaster (DR); 2001-09-21.
Every title in this category appears once in the current extract, so its declaration-row count and named-record count happen to match.
Which federal declaration does terrorist actually get?
With only 2 declarations on record, this type is too thin to express as a reliable percentage split, so the raw breakdown is: 1 Emergency (EM), 1 Major Disaster (DR). Each federal instrument carries different assistance: a Major Disaster declaration can unlock Individual Assistance and Hazard Mitigation funding, an Emergency declaration is narrower and faster, and Fire Management Assistance covers firefighting costs during an active incident.
Declarations by State
| # | State | Declarations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts MA | 1 |
| 2 | Virginia VA | 1 |
Declarations by Year
| Year | Declarations |
|---|---|
| 2013 | 1 |
| 2001 | 1 |
Recent Terrorist Declarations
Download all 2 declarations as CSV . Source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0. The table below lists the 2 most recent; the file carries every one.
| DR# | Title | State | Type | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3362 | EXPLOSIONS | MA | EM | 2013-04-17 |
| 1392 | FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS | VA | DR | 2001-09-21 |
What this means for Terrorist declarations
Terrorist is rarer than 96% of the other declaration types FEMA tracks, with 2 FEMA declaration records; Massachusetts leads with 1.
- Massachusetts accounts for the largest share of terrorist declarations in this corpus. Massachusetts profile
- See how states compare on raw FEMA declaration volume across all incident types. Most disasters ranking
- Learn what a FEMA declaration does and does not measure relative to NOAA storm events. Disaster-data guide
A federal declaration is a legal assistance trigger, not a count of every storm event or a forecast. For current threats follow the National Weather Service and local officials; in an emergency call 911.
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Source: FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 For informational purposes only
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Related
Verify declarations with FEMA → Verify storm-event context 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.