FEMA has just published 2019 National Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA): Overview and Methodology, a document intended to provide an in-depth description of its approach to completing a national-level risk assessment. FEMA undertook completing a National THIRA as part of a larger effort to meet requirements established by the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018 (DRRA), which directed the agency to ““complete a national preparedness assessment of capability gaps at each level based on tiered, capability-specific performance objectives to enable prioritization of grant funding.” By developing a suite of assessment products, known collectively as the “National Risk and Capability Assessment,” FEMA intends to “measure risk and capability across the Nation in a standardized and coordinated process.” The National THIRA is meant to serve as a foundational component of this group of assessments.

Since 2012, communities across the U.S. have used a standard THIRA methodology to identify and assess the threats and hazards they face. In 2018, this methodology was updated to include new standardized language. The National THIRA applies the updated THIRA methodology and the standardized language at the national level to identify the nation’s most challenging threats and hazards and the impacts that would result if they occurred as well as the capabilities needed to manage them.