OpenFEMA Scraper

Pull structured disaster and recovery data straight from FEMA's free public OpenFEMA API. Get U.S. disaster declarations, public assistance funded projects, housing assistance aggregates, and the full OpenFEMA dataset catalog — filtered by state, incident type, FEMA region, disaster number, and date range. Clean JSON output, ready for analysis, dashboards, or research.

No login, no API key, no cookies, and no proxy required — OpenFEMA is 100% public U.S. government open data.

What this actor does

• 5 datasets in one actor — pick the one you need with the mode field:
  • Disaster declarations (disasterDeclarations) — every federally declared disaster, one row per designated county / area, with program flags (Individual Assistance, Public Assistance, Hazard Mitigation).
  • Disaster declarations, one row per disaster (webDisasterDeclarations) — a de-duplicated, disaster-level view including the official FEMA disaster page URL.
  • Public assistance funded projects (publicAssistanceProjects) — infrastructure recovery grants with obligated dollar amounts, damage categories, and project status.
  • Housing assistance (housingAssistance) — homeowner or renter assistance aggregated by city / ZIP, with inspection and grant totals.
  • OpenFEMA dataset catalog (datasets) — a directory of all OpenFEMA datasets with record counts and data-dictionary links.
• Rich filters — state / territory, incident type, declaration type, FEMA region, disaster number, fiscal year range, declaration-date range, county, ZIP code, project size, damage category, and assistance-program type.
• Every finite field is a dropdown — 59 states/territories, 26 incident types, 3 declaration types, 10 FEMA regions.
• Empty fields are omitted — no nulls, no placeholders. Every record carries sourceUrl, recordType, and scrapedAt.

Output fields

Every record includes sourceUrl (the exact OpenFEMA API endpoint it came from), recordType, and scrapedAt. Fields with no value are omitted from the record.

• Disaster declarations: femaDeclarationString, disasterNumber, state, declarationType, declarationTitle, incidentType, fyDeclared, declarationDate, incidentBeginDate, incidentEndDate, designatedArea, declarationRequestNumber, incidentId, region, fipsStateCode, fipsCountyCode, placeCode, ihProgramDeclared, iaProgramDeclared, paProgramDeclared, hmProgramDeclared, tribalRequest, lastRefresh, femaDisasterUrl.
• Web disaster declarations: disasterNumber, disasterName, declarationType, incidentType, stateCode, stateName, region, declarationDate, declarationRequestDate, incidentBeginDate, incidentEndDate, closeoutDate, entryDate, updateDate, lastRefresh, program flags, femaDisasterUrl.
• Public assistance projects: disasterNumber, declarationDate, incidentType, pwNumber, applicationTitle, applicantId, damageCategoryCode, damageCategory, projectStatus, projectProcessStep, projectSize, county, countyCode, state, stateNumberCode, projectAmount, federalShareObligated, totalObligated, mitigationAmount, gmProjectId, gmApplicantId, firstObligationDate, lastObligationDate, lastRefresh, femaDisasterUrl.
• Housing assistance: disasterNumber, state, county, city, zipCode, housingAssistanceType, validRegistrations, totalInspected, approvedForFemaAssistance, totalApprovedIhpAmount, repairReplaceAmount, rentalAmount, otherNeedsAmount, totalMaxGrants, approvedBetween1And10000, approvedBetween10001And25000, approvedBetween25001AndMax, femaDisasterUrl. Homeowners also include totalDamage, averageFemaInspectedDamage, noFemaInspectedDamage, and femaInspectedDamageBetween* bands; renters include totalInspectedWithNoDamage, totalWithModerateDamage, totalWithMajorDamage, and totalWithSubstantialDamage.
• Dataset catalog: identifier, name, title, description, publisher, theme, accessLevel, accrualPeriodicity, version, recordCount, keyword, issued, modified, lastDataSetRefresh, webServiceUrl, dataDictionaryUrl, landingPageUrl, distributions (download format / url / size).

Output samples

Disaster declaration

{
  "femaDeclarationString": "DR-4844-FL",
  "disasterNumber": 4844,
  "state": "FL",
  "declarationType": "DR",
  "declarationTitle": "HURRICANE MILTON",
  "incidentType": "Hurricane",
  "fyDeclared": 2025,
  "declarationDate": "2024-11-05",
  "incidentBeginDate": "2024-10-05",
  "incidentEndDate": "2024-11-02",
  "designatedArea": "Alachua (County)",
  "region": 4,
  "ihProgramDeclared": true,
  "paProgramDeclared": true,
  "hmProgramDeclared": true,
  "femaDisasterUrl": "https://www.fema.gov/disaster/4844",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v2/DisasterDeclarationsSummaries?$filter=disasterNumber%20eq%204844",
  "recordType": "disasterDeclaration",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-02T13:11:02.100841+00:00"
}

Public assistance project

{
  "disasterNumber": 4817,
  "declarationDate": "2024-09-16",
  "incidentType": "Hurricane",
  "pwNumber": 714,
  "applicationTitle": "Management Costs",
  "damageCategory": "Management Costs",
  "projectStatus": "Active",
  "projectSize": "Small",
  "county": "St. Tammany Parish",
  "state": "LA",
  "projectAmount": 3888.23,
  "federalShareObligated": 3888.23,
  "totalObligated": 3888.23,
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v2/PublicAssistanceFundedProjectsDetails?$filter=disasterNumber%20eq%204817",
  "recordType": "publicAssistanceProject",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-02T13:11:58.966034+00:00"
}

Housing assistance

{
  "disasterNumber": 4879,
  "state": "TX",
  "county": "Kerr (County)",
  "city": "COMFORT",
  "zipCode": "78013",
  "housingAssistanceType": "owners",
  "validRegistrations": 11,
  "totalDamage": 310515.82,
  "totalApprovedIhpAmount": 109743.89,
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v2/HousingAssistanceOwners?$filter=disasterNumber%20eq%204879",
  "recordType": "housingAssistance",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-02T13:12:03.921095+00:00"
}

Input

Field	Type	Applies to	Description
mode	select	all	Which dataset to query (see list above).
state	select	all except datasets	Two-letter state / territory code (e.g. FL).
incidentType	select	declarations, public assistance	Hurricane, Flood, Fire, Severe Storm, Tornado, …
declarationType	select	disasterDeclarations	DR (Major Disaster), EM (Emergency), FM (Fire Management).
region	select	declaration modes	FEMA region 1–10.
programType	select	disasterDeclarations	Only declarations activating a given program (IH / IA / PA / HM).
disasterNumber	integer	all except datasets	Restrict to one FEMA disaster (e.g. 4844).
fyDeclaredMin / fyDeclaredMax	integer	disasterDeclarations	Federal fiscal-year range.
declarationDateFrom / declarationDateTo	string	declaration modes	Date range, YYYY-MM-DD.
county	string	public assistance, housing	Exact county-name match.
zipCode	string	housingAssistance	Exact 5-digit ZIP-code match.
projectSize	select	publicAssistanceProjects	FEMA project size: Small or Large.
damageCategory	select	publicAssistanceProjects	FEMA damage category A–G or Z (Debris, Roads & Bridges, Utilities, …).
housingAssistanceType	select	housingAssistance	owners or renters.
maxItems	integer	all	Maximum records to return (1–50,000).

Example: Florida hurricanes with Public Assistance since FY2020

{
  "mode": "disasterDeclarations",
  "state": "FL",
  "incidentType": "Hurricane",
  "programType": "publicAssistance",
  "fyDeclaredMin": 2020,
  "maxItems": 200
}

Example: Public assistance projects for a specific disaster

{
  "mode": "publicAssistanceProjects",
  "disasterNumber": 1603,
  "county": "Orleans Parish",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: Renter housing assistance in Texas

{
  "mode": "housingAssistance",
  "state": "TX",
  "housingAssistanceType": "renters",
  "maxItems": 500
}

Use cases

• Emergency management & GIS — pull every declared disaster for a state or region to drive maps and dashboards.
• Insurance & reinsurance — model exposure by joining declarations and public-assistance obligations to disaster numbers.
• Journalism & open data — track federal recovery spending by county, incident type, or fiscal year.
• Academic research — bulk-export decades of declarations for climate, hazard, or policy studies.
• Grant & recovery analysts — monitor public-assistance project status and obligated dollar amounts per disaster.
• Housing & community planning — analyze homeowner and renter assistance totals by city and ZIP after an event.

FAQ

Do I need an API key or account? No. OpenFEMA is public U.S. government open data. This actor works out of the box with zero configuration beyond the input fields.

How current is the data? It is served live from FEMA's OpenFEMA API, which FEMA refreshes on its own schedule (many datasets update several times a day). You always get the latest data FEMA has published.

Why do several rows share the same disaster number? In disasterDeclarations, FEMA issues one record per designated county / area, so a large disaster spans many rows. Use webDisasterDeclarations for a single row per disaster.

Can I get every record for a disaster? Yes. Set disasterNumber and raise maxItems. The actor paginates automatically until it reaches your cap or the end of the results.

What does femaDisasterUrl link to? The official FEMA disaster page (e.g. https://www.fema.gov/disaster/4844). Open it in a browser for the full disaster overview.

Which states and territories are supported? All 50 states, DC, and U.S. territories (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands) plus the Freely Associated States.

Data source

All data comes from FEMA's OpenFEMA program at https://www.fema.gov/api/open, a free, public, U.S. federal open-data service. No account, key, or credential is needed. sourceUrl on each record links back to the exact API resource so results are fully traceable.