Northwest Arctic Borough

Every large fire

1. Large fires mapped by the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity program since 1984: 1,000 acres or more in the West, 500 or more in the East. Prescribed burns are excluded. Acres here are the part of each perimeter inside this place.

Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service), 1984 to 2026.

Smoke overhead

1. A smoke day is a date on which a smoke plume traced by NOAA Hazard Mapping System analysts from satellite imagery covered this place's point (the county's population centre or the city centre). Counts here are of medium or heavy smoke. Since 2018 analysts have often drawn light smoke as one area over most of the continent, so light-smoke counts are not comparable from year to year. The plumes show smoke anywhere in the air above, not air quality at the ground, and smoke hidden by cloud is missed.

NOAA Hazard Mapping System smoke analysis, 2011 to 2026, retrieved October 30, 2026.

Claims by ZIP code

This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims v3, refreshed August 4, 2026. NOAA Storm Events through 2026.

River crests

River gauges

1. Crests are the highest and the recent crests the National Weather Service lists for each river gauge in the county that has a flood stage, not every flood. Flood categories use each gauge's current flood stages; crests from before levees, dams or channel changes may not be comparable. Crests measured on an old datum are left out of the rankings.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service gauge records, retrieved October 30, 2026.

Every earthquake of magnitude 4 or more within 50 miles

1. Earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more in the USGS Comprehensive Catalog since 1900. Within 50 miles means the epicentre lies within 50 miles of the county boundary (or inside the county).
2. Small earthquakes were under-recorded before the modern seismic networks of the 1970s and are still missed in remote areas, so early decades read low. Magnitudes are as the catalogue reports them and mix scales (moment, local and body-wave).

USGS ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog, 1900 to present, retrieved October 30, 2026.

Volcanoes within 100 miles

1. U.S. volcanoes within 100 miles, from the USGS Volcano Hazards Program. The threat category is the USGS 2018 National Volcanic Threat Assessment, which ranks volcanoes by how hazardous their past eruptions were and how many people and how much infrastructure lie near them. It is not a forecast of eruption.

USGS Volcano Hazards Program, retrieved October 30, 2026.

Costliest events since 1996

1. Oct 8, 2025Coastal Flood, Baldwin Peninsula$1.2 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   An emergency manager in Kotzebue received a report at 09:46 local time of water just shy of the road the city uses to trigger mandatory evacuation orders (the road name was not specified). Later that day, the City of Kotzebue issued a evacuation order at 12:05 local time advising residents in low-lying areas to seek shelter at the Kotzebue Middle/High School. That night, 103 people were successfully sheltered overnight and 6 residents were displaced. Additionally, the Kotzebue Sound Tide Gauge reported water levels at 5.74 ft at 17:00 local time on October 8th. In total, 52 homes sustained water damage and needed to be repaired.

2. Oct 8, 2025Coastal Flood, Kivalina And Red Dog Dock$800,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   The Anchorage Daily News posted an online article on their website stating a non-mandatory evacuation was issued at 13:30 local time on October 8th according to a Kivalina resident named Janet Mitchell. Later on October 8th, an online publication by KTUU AK News Source wrote a full evacuation was ordered for the city of Kivalina at 17:45 local time according to another Kivalina resident. In the October 9th AK SEOC SitRep, they documented 287 residents taking shelter overnight in the local gym on October 8th.

1. Storm Events records before 1996 cover only tornadoes, thunderstorm wind and hail. Damage figures are as reported by the National Weather Service at the time, not adjusted for inflation.

NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, 1950 to 2026, issued October 26, 2026.

All-time high

85°F3 times, most recently Jun 19, 2013

All-time low

−58°FMar 16, 1930

Warmest night

68°FJul 28, 1933

Coldest day

−50°F2 times, most recently Jan 18, 1934

Wettest day

1.73 inJul 28, 1946

Snowiest day

19.0 inMar 31, 1938

Hottest year

2016mean 29.7°F

Coldest year

1964mean 16.6°F

Wettest year

202317.48 in

Driest year

19695.07 in

Snowiest season

117.7 in2004-05

Station Kotzebue Airport (USW00026616), 11 ft elevation, 27.8 miles from the population centre. Daily records from 1897 to October 26, 2026; 98.7% of days in the last 30 years are complete. Records at a single station can differ from a city’s official threaded record, which may combine several stations.

NOAA NCEI Global Historical Climatology Network Daily.

This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries, retrieved October 30, 2026. Statewide declarations are not listed.

Neighbouring counties

• Tornadoes NOAA Storm Prediction Center severe weather database, through 2025.
• Tropical cyclones NOAA National Hurricane Center HURDAT2 (Atlantic; Northeast and Central Pacific), through 2025.
• Wildfire USGS/USFS Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity, through 2026.
• Storm events NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, through 2026.
• Flood insurance OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims v3, refreshed August 4, 2026.
• Declarations OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2, retrieved October 30, 2026.
• Weather records NOAA NCEI Global Historical Climatology Network Daily, station USW00026616.
• River crests NOAA National Weather Service, National Water Prediction Service river gauges, retrieved October 30, 2026.
• Drought NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county Palmer Drought Severity Index, through September 2026.
• Smoke NOAA NESDIS Hazard Mapping System smoke analysis, retrieved October 30, 2026.
• Volcanoes USGS Volcano Hazards Program, U.S. volcanoes and 2018 threat assessment.
• Earthquakes USGS ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat), retrieved October 30, 2026.

Joins, thresholds and known limits are set out in the methodology. Found an error? Report it. Page built October 30, 2026.