Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0Hazard risk in Piney is higher than in 98% of Canadian towns
Wildfire is a real hazard for Piney: 13% of the land within 25 km has burned since 1986, 0.50% a year, in the high band. Earthquakes matter little: NRCan’s model puts building losses at $0.005 a year per $1,000 of value, against $0.030 for the typical town. Radon is about average around Piney: 9.7% of tested homes in the survey area topped the guideline, against 6.6% for the typical town. Piney grades D− for hazard risk, with wildfire counted against it.
What stands out about Piney’s hazards
For Piney, from NRCan’s seismic model, Health Canada’s radon survey, the national burned-area record and the flood map inventory.
What Piney faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Hazard risk in Piney: D−
Seismic risk and radon set Piney’s grade, wildfire can drag it down, and flood mapping stays out of it.
How sure: Earthquake losses are a model’s expectation over many years, not a forecast for any one. The burned-area record misses fires under about 10 ha and most grass and farm fires.
A high wildfire band for Piney: 6.4% within 5 km, 13% within 25 km
Past fire around Piney’s homes, from the national burned-area record, with the fuel within 5 km.
The yearly burn rate around Piney is 0.50%, against 0.000% for the typical Canadian town: the high band.
Forest thickens with distance from Piney: 34% of the land within 5 km, 46% within 25 km.
Shares of land within 5 and 25 km of populated blocks: burned at least once in 1986–2025 (CWFIS burned-area composite), forest fuel and grass (fire behaviour fuel types, 2026, 250 m grid).
Burn rate a year, towns in Manitoba · highest of 190
In the top quarter in Manitoba: Piney ranks 3rd of 190 at 0.50% a year, with Flin Flon (Part) first at 1.68%.
Each bar: the yearly average share of land within 25 km of a town’s homes that burned, 1986–2025 (CWFIS); the seven highest towns of 2,500 people or more.
High is rare: 1.9% of Canada’s 2,610 towns, Piney among them, with 0.2% higher still.
Bands of the yearly burn rate: low under 0.05%, moderate under 0.25%, high under 1%, very high 1% or more; towns of 2,500 people or more.
Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System: National Burned Area Composite 1986–2025 and fire behaviour fuel types (2026), Natural Resources Canada. Measured within 25 km and 5 km of each populated dissemination area; past fire, not a forecast.
No flood study is listed for Piney
What Canada’s Flood Map Inventory lists for Piney: who studied flooding and where to see their maps.
No flood study on the national inventory covers Piney; ask the municipality, which is the authority for its flood maps.
Towns with a flood study on file
Flood maps are thinner in Manitoba, 18% of towns against 58% nationally, and Piney has none.
NRCan Canada Flood Map Inventory: a study footprint touching the town’s boundary; towns of 2,500 people or more.
The grade leaves flood out, since a study area says nothing about how many of Piney’s homes are at risk.
The inventory’s own caution (NRCan): “The Canada Flood Map (CFM) does not include every flood hazard map in Canada and may be incomplete or contain inaccuracies. It should not be relied upon as the official source of flood mapping information. Furthermore, if a map appears to be missing, this does not necessarily mean that the area has never been mapped. For the official version of a map, updated information, or confirmation of applicable regulations, please contact the local authority responsible for flood mapping.”
Little shaking expected in Piney: $0.005 a year per $1,000
Expected yearly building losses from earthquakes, from Natural Resources Canada’s model.
At $0.005 per $1,000, Piney carries 0.2 times the typical Canadian town’s earthquake risk ($0.030): low.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Neither high nor low in Manitoba: Piney’s $0.005 sits by the median of $0.006, while Virden reaches $0.007.
NRCan seismic risk model (2022): mean yearly building loss per $1,000 of value; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
At the bottom of Canada’s range, Piney has 96% of the 2,611 towns above it.
Each column: the share of Canada’s towns of 2,500 people or more in that range of yearly loss per $1,000 (NRCan, 2022).
What a quake does after the shaking, fire, landslides, tsunami, falls outside NRCan’s figure for Piney.
Natural Resources Canada, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model (2022), by census subdivision (2016 boundaries; a few 2021 subdivisions take their residents’ mean).
9.7% of homes tested around Piney are over the radon guideline
Long-term radon tests in homes across the survey area, against Health Canada’s guideline.
Around Piney, 9.7% of tested homes topped the guideline, near the typical Canadian town’s 6.6%. For radon tests, the only official count covers all of the South Eastman health region, Piney included.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
Piney’s area, at 9.7%, is close to the median in Manitoba (12%).
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Between 5% and 10% of tests over the guideline: Piney, and 37% of Canada’s 2,611 towns; 26% are higher.
Each bar: the share of Canada’s towns of 2,500 people or more whose survey area had that share of tests over 200 Bq/m³.
A low area share in Piney doesn’t clear a house, nor does a high one condemn it: test.
Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes (2009–2011).
Where to get warnings in Piney
Environment and Climate Change Canada issues the weather alerts for Piney; Alert Ready carries the urgent ones to phones, radio and TV.
| Alert | What it means |
|---|---|
| Warning | Severe weather is happening or about to: act now. |
| Watch | Conditions favour severe weather: be ready. |
| Advisory | Weather that is less severe but could disrupt the day. |
| Special weather statement | Unusual weather worth knowing about. |
| Special air quality statement | Poor air, often wildfire smoke. |
Smoke and fire warnings for Piney come through Environment Canada and Alert Ready; the fire map is CWFIS’s.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Get ready for what Piney faces
Practical steps for Piney’s hazards, most pressing first.
- Clear needles and wood nearby.
- Keep a grab-and-go bag ready.
- In smoke, stay in; filter air.
- Test for three months in winter.
- Over 200 Bq/m³: fix it.
- Kits are cheap; pros test too.
- Never drive through floodwater.
- Move papers and medicines upstairs.
- Ask whether your street is mapped.
- Has it had a radon test?
- Ask the municipality for flood maps.
- How close is the forest edge?
- Are flood and wildfire insured?
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Flood studies aren’t flood zones. NRCan’s inventory says where flood mapping exists, not where water goes; the map’s owner is the authority for Piney.
- Radon is a survey. About 14,000 homes were tested across Canada in 2009–2011, and the share over the guideline for Piney is its health region’s, the survey’s design unit.
- Earthquakes are modelled. Seismic risk is NRCan’s model of yearly building losses from shaking, averaged over many years and given for Piney’s census subdivision (a neighbourhood shows its city’s).
- Wildfire counts one way. For Piney, wildfire means how much nearby land burned in the past forty years, a one-way input that can pull Risk down and nothing more.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Piney
How big is the earthquake risk in Piney?
NRCan’s model expects shaking to cost buildings in Piney $0.005 a year for every $1,000 of their value, on average over many years.
Does Piney flood?
No study on Canada’s Flood Map Inventory covers Piney (0), which doesn’t mean it has never been mapped, so ask the municipality.
Is radon a problem in Piney?
9.7% of the 113 homes Health Canada tested around Piney topped the guideline; your own house needs its own test.
Is Piney at risk of wildfire?
It is: 13% of the land within 25 km of Piney has burned since 1986, the latest in 2025, which puts it in the high band that lowers Risk.
How is Piney’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Hazard risk gives Piney D−, weighing earthquakes and radon and counting wildfire only against it.
Seismic risk: Natural Resources Canada. Radon: Health Canada. Wildfire: Canadian Wildland Fire Information System. Flood studies: Natural Resources Canada, Canada Flood Map Inventory. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.
Sources: NRCan, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model 2022 · Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes · CWFIS, National Burned Area Composite and FBP fuel types · NRCan, Canada Flood Map Inventory. Under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Adapted from Statistics Canada (Census of Population 2021, population estimates 2025, 2021 census boundaries) under the Statistics Canada Open Licence; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada. Neighbourhood names in some cities © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).