ResearchFEMA declarations1953-2025

FEMA disaster declarations since 1953

Name: FEMA disaster declarations by decade, type and incident
Creator: AreaZine
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

FEMA and its predecessors made 184 major disaster declarations in the 1960s and 602 in the 2010s; fire management declarations went from 552 in the 2000s to 464 in the 2010s.

The finding in numbers

184major disasters in the 1960s

602in the 2010s

552 to 464fire management declarations, 2000s to 2010s

Source: FEMA, OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries.

Declarations by decade

Decade	Major disasters	Emergencies	Fire management
1950s	94	0	0
1960s	184	0	0
1970s	328	77	38
1980s	237	15	34
1990s	460	61	216
2000s	560	153	552
2010s	602	119	464
2020s	425	205	310

Source: FEMA, OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries.

Major disasters a year

Major disaster declarations per year, 1953-2025

DR declarations by declaration date.

Source: FEMA, OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries.

What they were for, since 2010

Incident type	Major disasters
Severe Storm	468
Flood	221
Hurricane	110
Biological	59
Fire	42
Snowstorm	36

Source: FEMA, OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries.

Method and limits

By AreaZine. The finding and every figure are computed from the records when the page opens; the text is written with AI tools and checked against them (editorial policy).

One declaration is one FEMA number (DR, EM or FM), counted in the year of its declaration date, whatever the number of counties it covers. FEMA's incident type is the one it recorded for the declaration; a declaration for "severe storms and flooding" is recorded under one type. The number of declarations reflects federal policy and state requests as well as disasters.