San Miguel County, New Mexico: hazard history

FEMA declared 21 disasters that named San Miguel County between 1965 and 2023.

Most recent declarations

• FM-5465 2023 · Fire · Las Tusas Fire
• FM-5438 2022 · Fire · Calf Canyon Fire
• FM-5431 2022 · Fire · Hermit's Peak Fire
• DR-4652 2022 · Fire · Wildfires, Straight-line Winds, Flooding, Mudflows, And Debris Flows
• DR-4529 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3460 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4199 2014 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• DR-4197 2014 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• DR-4152 2013 · Flood · Severe Storms, Flooding, And Mudslides
• FM-5026 2013 · Fire · Tres Lagunas Fire

Not counted above: 35 statewide declarations, which covered every county in New Mexico. 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 San Miguel County each year. The busiest year was 2022, with 164 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Wildfire · May 1, 2022$100.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 3 injuries · NOAA record 1018398
2. Wildfire · Apr 19, 2022$25.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 1012058
3. Wildfire · May 1, 2022$11.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 10 injuries · NOAA record 1015508
4. Wildfire · Apr 6, 2022$10.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 1012048
5. Flash Flood · Jul 21, 2022$2.0M
   NOAA name: San Miguel County · 3 deaths · NOAA record 1030607

Deadliest records

1. Flash Flood · Jul 21, 20223 deaths
   NOAA name: San Miguel County · $2.0M damage · NOAA record 1030607
2. Hail · Aug 9, 20171 death
   NOAA name: San Miguel County · NOAA record 707833
3. Winter Weather · Dec 3, 20251 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $250K damage · NOAA record 1296292

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 $778K on 119 claims in San Miguel County from 1987 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 San Miguel 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 San Miguel 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 1,032 records, 349 were filed against this county and 683 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: 34% of New Mexico'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.