Photo: Ryan Hodnett · CC BY-SA 4.0A flood study covers Victoria Hills: 1 on the national inventory, the newest from Grand River Conservation Authority
Around Victoria Hills, wildfire is practically absent from the record: 0% within 25 km since 1986, 0.000% a year. Seismic risk in Victoria Hills sits near the middle: $0.022 of expected damage per $1,000 of buildings a year, the typical town $0.030. Radon is lower than usual: 4% of tested homes in the survey area topped the guideline, against 6.6% for the typical town. Hazard risk gives Victoria Hills a grade of A−, from earthquakes and radon alone.
What stands out about Victoria Hills’s hazards
For Victoria Hills, from NRCan’s seismic model, Health Canada’s radon survey, the national burned-area record and the flood map inventory.
What Victoria Hills faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Victoria Hills grades A− for hazard risk
The grade weighs Victoria Hills’ seismic risk and radon equally, and wildfire is one-sided: a high band counts against a town, a low one earns nothing.
Its place: #237 of 866 in Ontario and #594 of 2,589 Canadian towns.
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.
Wildfire is rare near Victoria Hills: 0% of the land within 25 km burned since 1986, 0% within 5 km
Fires mapped since 1986 around where Victoria Hills’ residents live, and the fuel next to their homes.
With 0.000% burned a year, Victoria Hills is among the many low-band places (the typical Canadian town 0.000%).
Around Victoria Hills the forest is thin or far off: 0.7% of the land within 5 km and 2.8% within 25 km is forest fuel.
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 Ontario · highest of 871
Sioux Lookout has the highest burn rate in Ontario, 0.16% a year; around Victoria Hills, as around 638 of the 871 towns, it rounds to zero.
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.
Only 7.5% of Canada’s 2,610 towns are above the low band, which holds 92%; Victoria Hills, at a rounded zero, is far from them.
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.
Grand River Conservation Authority has mapped flooding for Victoria Hills (1 study)
Flood studies whose area touches Victoria Hills, from NRCan’s inventory, each linked to its owner.
Grand River Conservation Authority holds the flood mapping that covers Victoria Hills (2018), linked below.
| Study | By | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grand River Regulatory Floodplain | Grand River Conservation Authority | 2018 | final |
Towns with a flood study on file
69% of towns in Ontario have a flood study, more than Canada’s 58%; Victoria Hills has one too.
NRCan Canada Flood Map Inventory: a study footprint touching the town’s boundary; towns of 2,500 people or more.
Flood studies don’t enter the grade; they are listed so you can open the official map for Victoria Hills.
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.”
Natural Resources Canada, Canada Flood Map Inventory; links go to each study’s owner.
Expected shaking damage in Victoria Hills: $0.022 a year per $1,000
NRCan’s seismic risk model: the damage shaking is expected to do to buildings each year, on average over many years.
Victoria Hills’ $0.022 is close to the typical town’s $0.030 (0.7 times as much).
Victoria Hills doesn’t get its own earthquake risk figures; the ones here come from the city of Kitchener.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Below the middle in Ontario: Victoria Hills’ $0.022 against a median of $0.043; Alexandria has $0.21.
NRCan seismic risk model (2022): mean yearly building loss per $1,000 of value; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Around half of Canada’s 2,611 towns expect more shaking damage than Victoria Hills (61%).
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).
For Victoria Hills the model prices shaking damage to buildings, nothing more.
Natural Resources Canada, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model (2022), by census subdivision (2016 boundaries; a few 2021 subdivisions take their residents’ mean).
4% of homes tested around Victoria Hills are over the radon guideline
Health Canada’s survey of long-term home tests: the share above the 200 Bq/m³ guideline.
At 4% over the guideline, the area around Victoria Hills is under the typical Canadian town’s 6.6%.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
Radon around Victoria Hills is ordinary for towns in Ontario: 4%, beside a median of 4%.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Victoria Hills is in the lowest band, with 37% of Canada’s 2,611 towns: under 5% of tests over the guideline, while 63% have more.
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.
Radon varies from house to house in Victoria Hills, so the survey is a reason to test, not a result for yours.
Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes (2009–2011). · Radon tests: the Waterloo Health Unit
Where to get warnings in Victoria Hills
Alerts for Victoria Hills come from Environment and Climate Change Canada and, for emergencies, Alert Ready.
| 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. |
Alert Ready carries evacuation orders for Victoria Hills to phones; CWFIS shows the day’s fire danger.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Hazards in the places around Victoria Hills
The same four hazards for the places next door.
| Town | Wildfire | Quake $/1,000 | Radon | Flood study |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Victoria Hills | Low | $0.022 | 4% | Yes |
| Westmount 5,048 · 0.7 km | Low | $0.022 | 4% | Yes |
| Cherry Hill 6,304 · 1.5 km | Low | $0.022 | 4% | Yes |
| Forest Hill 5,760 · 1.7 km | Low | $0.022 | 4% | Yes |
| Meinzinger Park-Lakeside 5,007 · 1.8 km | Low | $0.022 | 4% | Yes |
| Highland West 12,476 · 1.9 km | Low | $0.022 | 4% | Yes |
| Victoria Park 3,574 · 2.0 km | Low | $0.022 | 4% | Yes |
Among its neighbours Victoria Hills has the most fire on record (low); Westmount follows (low).
Radon is the survey area’s figure, so neighbours in one area share it.
Get ready for what Victoria Hills faces
What to do about the hazards Victoria Hills faces, and what to ask before you buy.
- 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.
- Clear needles and wood nearby.
- Keep a grab-and-go bag ready.
- In smoke, stay in; filter air.
- Has it had a radon test?
- Check the address on the flood map.
- Are flood and wildfire insured?
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Wildfire counts one way. For Victoria Hills, wildfire means how much nearby land burned in the past forty years, a one-way input that can pull Risk down and nothing more.
- Flood studies aren’t flood zones. The flood inventory points to maps; it is incomplete and not the official source, so ask the municipality about any street in Victoria Hills.
- Radon is a survey. Health Canada’s survey tested some 14,000 homes over three months; until postal-area boundaries are loaded, Victoria Hills takes its 2007 health region’s share.
- Earthquakes are modelled. Seismic risk is NRCan’s model of yearly building losses from shaking, averaged over many years and given for Victoria Hills’ census subdivision (a neighbourhood shows its city’s).
Questions about flooding and hazards in Victoria Hills
How big is the earthquake risk in Victoria Hills?
About $0.022 a year per $1,000 of building value, NRCan’s long-run expectation for Victoria Hills.
Is radon a problem in Victoria Hills?
Around Victoria Hills, 101 survey homes were tested and 4% came in over 200 Bq/m³, a guide to the area, not to any one home.
How is Victoria Hills’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Victoria Hills grades A− for hazard risk, from earthquakes and radon, with wildfire counted only where it lowers the grade.
Is Victoria Hills at risk of wildfire?
No meaningful wildfire history near Victoria Hills: 0% of nearby land since 1986, band low.
Does Victoria Hills flood?
The inventory lists a study touching Victoria Hills; whether a given street floods is on that map, not in the grade.
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).