Natural Hazard Loss Profile
Expected annual loss across the 18 natural hazards in FEMA's National Risk Index. Life safety is expressed in fatality-equivalents, combining expected deaths and injuries. Property loss counts building damage only, separate from agriculture.
These figures cover natural hazards only. Structure fire, EMS, and motor vehicle incidents are not included in the National Risk Index and are not counted here, so this is not an all-cause life safety measure. For Buffalo County, the largest single contributor is Cold Wave, 86% of the life-safety total.
Buffalo County carries an expected under 1 natural hazard fatality-equivalents and $1.5M in building loss per year. Rank chips compare the 66 South Dakota counties. Nationally, Buffalo County ranks 2017th of 3,222 U.S. counties for life-safety loss, 49th for life safety per 100k residents, 3037th for property loss, and 245th for property loss per resident. Computed from census tract data covering every resident, independent of fire department boundaries.
Add fire mortality, cause, and loss
Natural hazard exposure is one half of the picture. The other half is what your departments run on: fire deaths and injuries, cause of ignition, dollar loss per incident. That comes from NERIS incident reporting, and it grows as departments serving Buffalo County enroll. Our Regional tier brings it together across your jurisdiction, with participating departments, alongside response time analytics, cross-department benchmarking, and coverage gap analysis.
Talk to us about Buffalo County See what a department seesWhat Drives the Loss
Total expected annual loss: $4,242,488 per year. Life safety is shown here in dollars, at FEMA's $13.7M value of statistical life, so the three shares sum to the total.
Hazards Ranked Two Ways
The hazard that threatens people is often not the hazard that destroys buildings. Both columns cover the same 18 hazards over the same year.
By life-safety loss ($/yr)
By property loss ($/yr)
Census Tract Risk Map
Shaded by quintile across the census tracts in Buffalo County. Gray tracts have no modeled loss or no resident population. Per-resident figures on this map use the National Risk Index 2020 tract population.
Fire Service Profile
Department composition covers the 5 departments registered in NERIS Public for Buffalo County, SD. Departments that have not registered are not counted. Station coverage divides census population by registered stations; department service areas overlap, so their populations are not summed.
Department Rankings
Fire and EMS departments serving Buffalo County. Click column headers to sort.
NRI Rating is from FEMA's National Risk Index, which measures community risk across 18 natural hazards using expected annual losses, social vulnerability, and community resilience. Life-Safety Loss uses FEMA's Value of Statistical Life ($13.7M per expected fatality) to estimate annual risk to human life.
Department boundaries and station counts are self-reported through NERIS Public and may not reflect current service areas. Population and Life-Safety Loss reflect each department's full jurisdiction. County-level risk metrics are computed from census tract data and are not affected by boundary accuracy. See full methodology.
| Department ▲ | Est. Population ▲ | Life-Safety Loss ▼ | NRI Rating ▲ | Stations ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pukwana Volunteer Fire Department | 7,091 | $16.5M | Very High | 1 |
| Ree Heights Fire Department | 4,474 | $3.9M | Very High | 1 |
| Highmore Fire Department | 2,999 | $3.2M | Very High | 1 |
| Buffalo County Rural Fire Protection District 1 | 1,808 | $2.6M | Very High | 1 |
| Lower Brule Fire Department | 1,517 | $1.3M | Very High | 1 |
Risk Snapshot
FEMA Disaster Declarations
Response-level intelligence for your region
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