Navajo County, Arizona: hazard history

FEMA declared 21 disasters that named Navajo County between 1970 and 2021.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4620 2021 · Flood · Severe Storms And Flooding
• EM-3442 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4524 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3307 2010 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm
• DR-1888 2010 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms And Flooding
• DR-1660 2006 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• FM-2642 2006 · Fire · Potato Fire
• EM-3241 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1581 2004 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• FM-2478 2003 · Fire · Kinishba Fire

Not counted above: 32 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Arizona. A declaration is a decision to send federal help, not a measure of how bad an event was. Records run from 1953. Source: FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries.

Records start in 1996. Damage is NOAA's estimate at the time, in nominal dollars, and is often rounded; it is not insurance claims data. A storm that crossed two NOAA zones in this county is recorded, and counted, once per zone. A storm filed against a forecast zone is counted in every county that zone covers, with the whole storm's damage; do not add these figures across counties.

NOAA storm event records in Navajo County each year. The busiest year was 2010, with 75 records.

Years with no record are left out of the table, not shown as zero.

Costliest records

1. Wildfire · Jun 1, 2011$58.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 318290
2. Wildfire · Apr 28, 2018$50.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 744124
3. Wildfire · Jul 21, 2019$9.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 838601
4. High Wind · Mar 26, 2009$100K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 158041
5. High Wind · Apr 28, 2010$100K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 225311

Deadliest records

1. Winter Storm · Mar 20, 20005 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5135652
2. Winter Storm · Jan 12, 19972 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5584769
3. High Wind · Mar 31, 19992 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $25K damage · NOAA record 5688043
4. Heavy Snow · Jan 3, 20052 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5438693
5. Ice Storm · Jan 25, 20062 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5486153

Each line is one NOAA record, linked to its page at NOAA. One large storm can appear more than once if NOAA recorded it in several zones of this county. Dollars are nominal.

The National Flood Insurance Program paid $971K on 106 claims in Navajo County from 1978 to 2024.

A count of claims, not a rate: NFIP publishes no count of insured homes beside it, and most flood damage is uninsured. Nominal dollars. Records run from 1978 to 2024; claims filed without a county code are not on any county page. Source: FEMA OpenFEMA FIMA NFIP Redacted Claims.

A hazard vulnerability analysis rates each hazard for probability, impact, preparedness and response. Probability is the one column the county’s federal record can fill — NCEI storm events from 1996 to 2026 and FEMA declarations naming the county — and this is what it says for a facility here, on the 0–3 scale of the all-hazards structure surveyors expect. The other six columns are the facility’s own judgment about its building, and Calchis leaves them blank.

A dash means the record does not speak to that hazard; it is not a zero. Whether a finished document satisfies the CMS Emergency Preparedness Rule is the facility’s finding and its surveyor’s. Complete the HVA for a facility in Navajo County — the technological, human and hazardous-materials rows, the six facility columns, the approval and the printed document — or read the sample analysis on that page first.

• Every figure is counted from public federal records held by Calchis: NOAA NCEI Storm Events, FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations, and FEMA NFIP claims. Nothing is modeled or estimated.
• NOAA files some events against a county and others against an NWS forecast zone, and publishes a code for both. Records are counted as Navajo County by that code — county records by the county's own FIPS code, zone records through the National Weather Service's published list of which counties each zone covers. No name matching is involved. Of 1,158 records, 322 were filed against this county and 836 against a forecast zone covering it. A zone storm is counted in every county its zone covers, and its damage figure is the whole storm's, not this county's share — NOAA does not publish that split. So these figures describe this county; they must not be added up across counties. Left out: 6% of Arizona's NOAA records, which are marine zones or zones NWS does not map to a county.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.