Photo: Bryn Pinzgauer · CC BY 2.0On hazards, L'Isle-aux-Coudres comes out behind 88% of Canadian towns
Little of the land around L'Isle-aux-Coudres has burned: 0.1% within 25 km since 1986, or 0.001% a year. Shaking is a bigger worry than in most places, at $0.39 a year per $1,000 of building value ($0.030 typical). L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ survey area, 8.8% over the radon guideline, is close to the typical town’s 6.6%. L'Isle-aux-Coudres grades D for hazard risk; wildfire is low here, so it earns no credit.
What stands out about L'Isle-aux-Coudres’s hazards
For L'Isle-aux-Coudres, from NRCan’s seismic model, Health Canada’s radon survey, the national burned-area record and the flood map inventory.
What L'Isle-aux-Coudres faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
L'Isle-aux-Coudres grades D for hazard risk
Earthquake risk and radon make L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ grade; wildfire can only lower it, never raise it, and flood studies are listed but not scored.
How sure: The seismic figure is a long-run average from NRCan’s model, not a prediction. The burned-area record misses fires under about 10 ha and most grass and farm fires.
Little of the land around L'Isle-aux-Coudres has burned: 0.3% within 5 km, 0.1% within 25 km since 1986
Past fire around L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ homes, from the national burned-area record, with the fuel within 5 km.
Around L'Isle-aux-Coudres fire takes 0.001% of the land in a typical year, the typical Canadian town 0.000%, which is low.
Within 5 km of L'Isle-aux-Coudres, 36% of the land is forest fuel; widen the ring to 25 km and it is 69%.
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
At 0.001% a year, L'Isle-aux-Coudres ranks 136th of the 514 towns in Quebec; Mistissini leads at 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.
Beside 2,610 Canadian towns, L'Isle-aux-Coudres reads low, with 92% of them; only 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.
The flood map inventory lists nothing for L'Isle-aux-Coudres
What Canada’s Flood Map Inventory lists for L'Isle-aux-Coudres: who studied flooding and where to see their maps.
NRCan’s inventory is silent on L'Isle-aux-Coudres, so any flood map would be the municipality’s own.
Towns with a flood study on file
Only 45% of towns in Quebec have a flood study, short of Canada’s 58%, and L'Isle-aux-Coudres is not among them.
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 L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ 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.”
Shaking is L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ costliest hazard: $0.39 a year per $1,000
Expected yearly building losses from earthquakes, from Natural Resources Canada’s model.
Roughly 13.1 times the typical $0.030: L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ $0.39 marks real seismic exposure.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Above the middle in Quebec: L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ $0.39 against a median of $0.14, with La Pocatière 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.
L'Isle-aux-Coudres is in the top tenth of Canada’s 2,611 towns for earthquake risk; 4.4% rank 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).
What a quake does after the shaking, fire, landslides, tsunami, falls outside NRCan’s figure for L'Isle-aux-Coudres.
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 L'Isle-aux-Coudres: 8.8% of area homes over the guideline
Long-term radon tests in homes across the survey area, against Health Canada’s guideline. · Measured across the Capitale-Nationale health region: radon tests
Around L'Isle-aux-Coudres, 8.8% of tested homes topped the guideline, near the typical Canadian town’s 6.6%.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
2.5% of tests around L'Isle-aux-Coudres passed 600 Bq/m³; over 200, its 8.8% matches the median in Quebec, 8.2%.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Radon tops the guideline in a modest share of homes around L'Isle-aux-Coudres, a band holding 37% of Canada’s 2,611 towns; 26% rank above.
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 L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ 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 L'Isle-aux-Coudres
Environment and Climate Change Canada issues the weather alerts for L'Isle-aux-Coudres; 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. |
In fire season, check CWFIS for danger and active fires around L'Isle-aux-Coudres, and listen to local authorities for orders.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Hazards in the places around L'Isle-aux-Coudres
Wildfire band, earthquake risk, radon and flood studies for each place nearby.
| Town | Wildfire | Quake $/1,000 | Radon | Flood study |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L'Isle-aux-Coudres | Low | $0.39 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Les Éboulements 1,661 · 7.1 km | Low | $0.34 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Baie-Saint-Paul 7,760 · 11 km | Low | $0.29 | 8.8% | Yes |
| Saint-Hilarion 1,221 · 18 km | Low | $0.37 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Petite-Rivière-Saint-François 1,150 · 18 km | Low | $0.24 | 8.8% | None listed |
Saint-Hilarion burns a little more than L'Isle-aux-Coudres, in the same low band (low here).
Radon is the survey area’s figure, so neighbours in one area share it.
Get ready for what L'Isle-aux-Coudres faces
Practical steps for L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ 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. Seismic risk is NRCan’s model of yearly building losses from shaking, averaged over many years and given for L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ census subdivision (a neighbourhood shows its city’s).
- Wildfire counts one way. For L'Isle-aux-Coudres, 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. A study’s area can be a whole watershed or province, so being on the inventory says a map exists, not that a home in L'Isle-aux-Coudres floods.
- Radon is a survey. The radon share comes from about 14,000 long-term home tests in 2009–2011, pooled for now by the 2007 health region L'Isle-aux-Coudres sits in.
Questions about flooding and hazards in L'Isle-aux-Coudres
Is radon a problem in L'Isle-aux-Coudres?
The area’s survey found 8.8% of 160 tested homes above Health Canada’s guideline, so a three-month test is worth doing in L'Isle-aux-Coudres.
Does L'Isle-aux-Coudres flood?
The inventory has 0 studies for L'Isle-aux-Coudres, and an empty list isn’t a clean bill: the municipality holds any flood maps.
How big is the earthquake risk in L'Isle-aux-Coudres?
NRCan’s model expects shaking to cost buildings in L'Isle-aux-Coudres $0.39 a year for every $1,000 of their value, on average over many years.
How is L'Isle-aux-Coudres’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
L'Isle-aux-Coudres grades D for hazard risk, from earthquakes and radon, with wildfire counted only where it lowers the grade.
Is L'Isle-aux-Coudres at risk of wildfire?
Some, but L'Isle-aux-Coudres’ low band (0.1% of nearby land burned since 1986, latest 2022) 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).