Siskiyou County, California: hazard history

FEMA declared 23 disasters that named Siskiyou County between 1964 and 2023.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4750 2023 · Hurricane · Tropical Storm Hilary
• DR-4683 2022 · Flood · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• FM-5450 2022 · Fire · Mill Fire
• FM-5393 2021 · Fire · Lava Fire
• FM-5361 2020 · Fire · Slater Fire
• DR-4569 2020 · Fire · Wildfires
• EM-3428 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4482 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• FM-5250 2018 · Fire · Klamathon Fire
• DR-4308 2017 · Flood · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, And Mudslides

Not counted above: 34 statewide declarations, which covered every county in California. 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 Siskiyou County each year. The busiest year was 2001, with 114 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Wildfire · Aug 1, 2006$23.5M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5525128
2. Wildfire · Sep 15, 2014$20.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 538016
3. Wildfire · Aug 1, 2006$11.7M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5525126
4. Wildfire · Aug 1, 2006$11.1M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5525127
5. Flood · Dec 31, 2005$7.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 1 death · NOAA record 5482306

Deadliest records

1. Wildfire · Aug 1, 20224 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 1038350
2. Wildfire · Sep 2, 20222 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 1044021
3. Flood · Dec 31, 20051 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $7.0M damage · NOAA record 5482306
4. Wildfire · Jul 22, 20081 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 110133
5. Heavy Snow · Jan 20, 20101 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $2.0M damage · NOAA record 203520

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 $356K on 63 claims in Siskiyou County from 1980 to 2017.

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 1997 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 Siskiyou 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 Siskiyou 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 1,383 records, 88 were filed against this county and 1,295 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: 29% of California'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.