This paper presents a novel framework for analysis of power system wide-area blackout based on so called fault cascading scenarios. For a given power system operating state, "triggering" faults or a "seed faults" are chosen based on the probabilities estimated from the hazard rates. The fault probabilities reflect both the load and the weather conditions. Effects of hidden failures in protection systems are also reflected in establishing the fault propagation scenarios since they are one of the major causes for the wide-area blackouts. A tree type data structure called a PS-BEST(Power System Blackout Event Scenario Tree) is proposed for construction of the fault cascading scenarios, in which nodes represent various power system operating states and the arcs are the events causing transitions between the states. Arcs can be either probabilistic or deterministic. For a given initial fault, the total probability of leading to wide-area blackout is estimated by aggregating the individual probability of each fault sequence route leading to wide-area blackout. A case study is performed on the IEEE RTS-79(24 bus) system based on the fault data presented by the North American Electrical Reliability Council(NERC). Test results demonstrate the potentials and the effectiveness of the proposed technique for the future wide-area blackout analysis.