Photo: Reg Natarajan from Vancouver, Canada · CC BY 2.0Elder Mills faces fewer hazards than 90% of Canadian towns
Since 1986 almost nothing has burned near Elder Mills: 0% of the land within 25 km, or 0.000% a year. NRCan expects $0.028 of shaking damage a year per $1,000 of buildings in Elder Mills, near the typical $0.030. Radon is lower than usual: 0% of tested homes in the survey area topped the guideline, against 6.6% for the typical town. Elder Mills grades A for hazard risk; wildfire is low here, so it earns no credit.
What stands out about Elder Mills’s hazards
For Elder Mills, from NRCan’s seismic model, Health Canada’s radon survey, the national burned-area record and the flood map inventory.
What Elder Mills faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Elder Mills grades A for hazard risk
Two inputs always count for Elder Mills, earthquakes and radon; the third, wildfire, counts only against a town.
Its place: #74 of 866 in Ontario and #383 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.
Few fires near Elder Mills: 0% within 5 km, 0% within 25 km
Past fire around Elder Mills’ homes, from the national burned-area record, with the fuel within 5 km.
Fire claims 0.000% of the land around Elder Mills each year, a low band, with the typical Canadian town at 0.000%.
Around Elder Mills the forest is thin or far off: 4.1% of the land within 5 km and 4.2% 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
Fire has taken almost none of the land around Elder Mills, as for 638 of the 871 towns in Ontario; Sioux Lookout tops the list at 0.16%.
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.
Most of the country’s 2,610 towns are low-band (92%, against 7.5% above); around Elder Mills, burning rounds to zero.
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.
Toronto Regional Conservation Authority has mapped flooding for Elder Mills (1 study)
What Canada’s Flood Map Inventory lists for Elder Mills: who studied flooding and where to see their maps.
The flood study touching Elder Mills is Toronto Regional Conservation Authority’s, dated 2021; its own map shows the zones street by street.
| Study | By | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toronto Floodline Consolidation | Toronto Regional Conservation Authority | 2021 | final |
Towns with a flood study on file
Its flood study puts Elder Mills with 69% of towns in Ontario; Canada’s share is 58%.
NRCan Canada Flood Map Inventory: a study footprint touching the town’s boundary; towns of 2,500 people or more.
Nothing here counts toward Risk; the studies are pointers to the maps their owners keep for Elder Mills.
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.
Ordinary seismic risk in Elder Mills: $0.028 per $1,000 of buildings a year
Expected yearly building losses from earthquakes, from Natural Resources Canada’s model.
Elder Mills’ $0.028 is close to the typical town’s $0.030 (0.9 times as much).
Elder Mills doesn’t get its own earthquake risk figures; the ones here come from the city of Vaughan.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Elder Mills’ $0.028 sits under the median in Ontario, $0.043, and well under Alexandria’s $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.
Elder Mills’ earthquake risk lands near the centre of Canada’s range; 51% of the 2,611 towns are higher.
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 Elder Mills 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).
0% of homes tested around Elder Mills are over the radon guideline
Long-term radon tests in homes across the survey area, against Health Canada’s guideline. · Shared with the rest of the York Regional Health Unit: radon tests
Elder Mills’ survey area reads 0% over the guideline, under the typical Canadian town’s 6.6%.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
Fewer homes top the guideline around Elder Mills (0%) than in the typical town in Ontario (4%).
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Radon rarely tops the guideline around Elder Mills, as for 37% of Canada’s 2,611 towns; 63% see 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.
Whatever Elder Mills’ area share, the reading that matters is your own home’s, over a winter.
Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes (2009–2011).
Where to get warnings in Elder Mills
Environment and Climate Change Canada issues the weather alerts for Elder Mills; 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 Elder Mills come through Environment Canada and Alert Ready; the fire map is CWFIS’s.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Hazards in the places around Elder Mills
Wildfire band, earthquake risk, radon and flood studies for each place nearby.
| Town | Wildfire | Quake $/1,000 | Radon | Flood study |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elder Mills | Low | $0.028 | 0% | Yes |
| Woodbridge Meadows 3,651 · 1.9 km | Low | $0.028 | 0% | Yes |
| Pine Grove 13,302 · 2.7 km | Low | $0.028 | 0% | Yes |
| The Ravines of Rainbow Creek 5,333 · 2.8 km | Low | $0.028 | 0% | Yes |
| The Estates of Rainbow Creek 6,822 · 3.4 km | Low | $0.028 | 0% | Yes |
| New Kleinburg 11,333 · 3.6 km | Low | $0.028 | 0% | Yes |
| Woodbridge 18,835 · 4.6 km | Low | $0.028 | 0% | Yes |
Elder Mills’ low band tops its neighbours; Woodbridge Meadows is next (low).
Radon is the survey area’s figure, so neighbours in one area share it.
Get ready for what Elder Mills faces
What to do about the hazards Elder Mills 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
- 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 Elder Mills.
- Radon is a survey. About 14,000 homes were tested across Canada in 2009–2011, and the share over the guideline for Elder Mills 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 Elder Mills’ census subdivision (a neighbourhood shows its city’s).
- Wildfire counts one way. For Elder Mills, 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 Elder Mills
How is Elder Mills’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Elder Mills grades A for hazard risk, from earthquakes and radon, with wildfire counted only where it lowers the grade.
Does Elder Mills flood?
There is flood mapping for Elder Mills on the national inventory, each study linked to its owner’s map, none of them graded.
Is radon a problem in Elder Mills?
Around Elder Mills, 95 survey homes were tested and 0% came in over 200 Bq/m³, a guide to the area, not to any one home.
Is Elder Mills at risk of wildfire?
No meaningful wildfire history near Elder Mills: 0% of nearby land since 1986, band low.
How big is the earthquake risk in Elder Mills?
In NRCan’s seismic model, Elder Mills’ buildings lose $0.028 per $1,000 of value in an average year.
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).