Photo: Jouu31 · Public domainWildfire low, radon 4.7%: how Les Escoumins stands on hazards
For Les Escoumins, wildfire history is close to nil: 0% of nearby land since 1986, 0.001% a year. Earthquakes add more: NRCan’s model puts building losses at $0.11 a year per $1,000 of value, against $0.030 for the typical town. Les Escoumins grades B− for hazard risk; wildfire is low here, so it earns no credit.
What stands out about Les Escoumins’s hazards
Four national sources, each read for Les Escoumins: earthquakes, radon, past fires and flood studies.
What Les Escoumins faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Les Escoumins grades B− for hazard risk
Seismic risk and radon set Les Escoumins’ 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. Small fires and grass fires are largely missing from the national burned-area record.
Little of the land around Les Escoumins has burned: 0% within 5 km, 0% within 25 km since 1986
Past fire around Les Escoumins’ homes, from the national burned-area record, with the fuel within 5 km.
A burn rate of 0.001% a year keeps Les Escoumins in the low band (the typical Canadian town: 0.000%).
Les Escoumins’ homes have had no fire within 5 km since 1986; the closest was 8.7 km away.
Forest thickens with distance from Les Escoumins: 79% of the land within 5 km, 87% 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 Quebec · highest of 514
Les Escoumins sits mid-table in Quebec: 136th of 514 towns, at 0.001% a year, well behind Mistissini (0.31%).
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.
The low band takes in 92% of Canada’s 2,610 towns, Les Escoumins among them, though its rate is above zero; 7.5% rank higher.
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 Les Escoumins
What Canada’s Flood Map Inventory lists for Les Escoumins: who studied flooding and where to see their maps.
There is no study for Les Escoumins on the national flood inventory, which is far from complete.
Towns with a flood study on file
Mapping in Quebec reaches 45% of towns, below the 58% across Canada, and not Les Escoumins.
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 Les Escoumins.
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.”
Shaking is Les Escoumins’ costliest hazard: $0.11 a year per $1,000
Expected yearly building losses from earthquakes, from Natural Resources Canada’s model.
Roughly 3.6 times the typical $0.030: Les Escoumins’ $0.11 marks real seismic exposure.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
At $0.11, Les Escoumins is below the typical town in Quebec ($0.14); La Pocatière is highest at $0.48.
NRCan seismic risk model (2022): mean yearly building loss per $1,000 of value; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Les Escoumins sits above most of Canada’s 2,611 towns on earthquake risk; 25% 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).
Roads, pipes and bridges aren’t in Les Escoumins’ figure, nor landslides or tsunami: it is buildings and shaking.
Natural Resources Canada, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model (2022), by census subdivision (2016 boundaries; a few 2021 subdivisions take their residents’ mean).
Some radon around Les Escoumins: 4.7% of area homes over the guideline
Long-term radon tests in homes across the survey area, against Health Canada’s guideline.
At 4.7% over the guideline, the area around Les Escoumins is about level with the typical Canadian town’s 6.6%.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
Fewer homes top the guideline around Les Escoumins (4.7%) than in the typical town in Quebec (8.2%).
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Under 5% puts Les Escoumins with 37% of Canada’s 2,611 towns; 63% have more high tests.
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.
The survey sampled homes around Les Escoumins; it can’t tell you your basement’s level.
Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes (2009–2011). · Not measured by town: radon tests (the Cote-Nord health region)
Weather and fire alerts for Les Escoumins
Alerts for Les Escoumins 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. |
Evacuation orders for Les Escoumins come from the municipality or the province, while CWFIS maps fire danger every day.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Get ready for what Les Escoumins faces
Practical steps for Les Escoumins’ hazards, most pressing first.
- 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.
- Drop, cover and hold on.
- Strap the water heater down.
- Keep 72 hours of supplies.
- Has it had a radon test?
- Ask the municipality for flood maps.
- Are flood and wildfire insured?
- Is earthquake cover included?
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Earthquakes are modelled. Shaking damage is modelled from the ground, the buildings and the odds of each quake, and published for whole subdivisions such as Les Escoumins’.
- Radon is a survey. About 14,000 homes were tested across Canada in 2009–2011, and the share over the guideline for Les Escoumins is its health region’s, the survey’s design unit.
- 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 Les Escoumins.
- Wildfire counts one way. The wildfire figure is the share of land within 25 km of Les Escoumins’ homes burned each year from 1986 to 2025, past fire rather than a forecast, and it can only lower Risk.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Les Escoumins
How big is the earthquake risk in Les Escoumins?
NRCan’s model expects shaking to cost buildings in Les Escoumins $0.11 a year for every $1,000 of their value, on average over many years.
Does Les Escoumins flood?
The inventory has 0 studies for Les Escoumins, and an empty list isn’t a clean bill: the municipality holds any flood maps.
Is radon a problem in Les Escoumins?
The area’s survey found 4.7% of 107 tested homes above Health Canada’s guideline, so a three-month test is worth doing in Les Escoumins.
How is Les Escoumins’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Hazard risk gives Les Escoumins B−, weighing earthquakes and radon and counting wildfire only against it.
Is Les Escoumins at risk of wildfire?
Some, but Les Escoumins’ low band (0% of nearby land burned since 1986, latest 2021) is short of the level that counts.
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).