FIRM

A Flood Insurance Rate Map is FEMA's regulatory flood map: the adopted instrument that draws flood-zone boundaries, designates Special Flood Hazard Areas, and publishes base flood elevations. FIRMs are what insurance mandates, building standards, and disclosure obligations legally key to — 'the flood map' in any regulatory sentence means the effective FIRM.

FIRMs carry vintages, and the vintage is analytical: each map models the studies available at adoption, and revisions arrive unevenly through restudies and amendments. New York's effective FIRMs are notably old, with newer preliminary maps unadopted after appeal — so the map that binds and the map that best estimates physical risk are, for now, different documents.