Photo: abdallahh from Montréal, Canada · CC BY 2.0Wildfire low, radon 4.7%: how Pointe-Lebel stands on hazards
Fire seldom reaches Pointe-Lebel: since 1986, 1.5% of the land within 25 km has burned (0.04% 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. Pointe-Lebel grades B− for hazard risk, with wildfire counted against it.
What stands out about Pointe-Lebel’s hazards
For Pointe-Lebel, from NRCan’s seismic model, Health Canada’s radon survey, the national burned-area record and the flood map inventory.
What Pointe-Lebel faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Hazard risk in Pointe-Lebel: B−
Earthquake risk and radon make Pointe-Lebel’s grade; wildfire can only lower it, never raise it, and flood studies are listed but not scored.
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 Pointe-Lebel: 0% within 5 km, 1.5% within 25 km
Past fire around Pointe-Lebel’s homes, from the national burned-area record, with the fuel within 5 km.
Around Pointe-Lebel fire takes 0.04% of the land in a typical year, the typical Canadian town 0.000%, which is low.
Nothing inside 5 km of Pointe-Lebel’s homes has burned since 1986, and the nearest scar is 8.0 km off.
The nearer ring around Pointe-Lebel is less wooded (49% forest fuel) than the land out to 25 km (82%).
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
Mistissini burns fastest in Quebec at 0.31% a year; Pointe-Lebel, at 0.04%, ranks 11th of 514.
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.
Some fire is mapped around Pointe-Lebel, but not enough to leave the low band, where 92% of Canada’s 2,610 towns are; 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 Pointe-Lebel
What Canada’s Flood Map Inventory lists for Pointe-Lebel: who studied flooding and where to see their maps.
There is no study for Pointe-Lebel on the national flood inventory, which is far from complete.
Towns with a flood study on file
No study touches Pointe-Lebel; in Quebec, 45% of towns have one, below Canada’s 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 Pointe-Lebel.
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 Pointe-Lebel’s costliest hazard: $0.11 a year per $1,000
Expected yearly building losses from earthquakes, from Natural Resources Canada’s model.
Roughly 3.5 times the typical $0.030: Pointe-Lebel’s $0.11 marks real seismic exposure.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Earthquake risk in Quebec peaks in La Pocatière ($0.48); Pointe-Lebel, at $0.11, is below the median of $0.14.
NRCan seismic risk model (2022): mean yearly building loss per $1,000 of value; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
25% of Canada’s 2,611 towns expect more shaking damage than Pointe-Lebel, which places it in the upper third.
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 Pointe-Lebel.
Natural Resources Canada, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model (2022), by census subdivision (2016 boundaries; a few 2021 subdivisions take their residents’ mean).
4.7% of homes tested around Pointe-Lebel are over the radon guideline
Long-term radon tests in homes across the survey area, against Health Canada’s guideline. · Source area for radon tests: the Cote-Nord health region
Pointe-Lebel’s area, at 4.7%, is close to the 6.6% of the typical Canadian town.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
The median in Quebec is 8.2% over 200 Bq/m³; around Pointe-Lebel it is 4.7%.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Few tests over the guideline: Pointe-Lebel shares the bottom band with 37% of Canada’s 2,611 towns, below the other 63%.
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 Pointe-Lebel’s 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 Pointe-Lebel
Environment and Climate Change Canada issues the weather alerts for Pointe-Lebel; 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 Pointe-Lebel 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 Pointe-Lebel
Wildfire band, earthquake risk, radon and flood studies for each place nearby.
| Town | Wildfire | Quake $/1,000 | Radon | Flood study |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pointe-Lebel | Low | $0.11 | 4.7% | None listed |
| Pointe-aux-Outardes 1,447 · 8.4 km | Moderate | $0.10 | 4.7% | None listed |
| Chute-aux-Outardes 1,406 · 8.8 km | Moderate | $0.078 | 4.7% | None listed |
| Baie-Comeau 20,660 · 8.8 km | Low | $0.079 | 4.7% | None listed |
| Ragueneau 1,287 · 16 km | High | $0.094 | 4.7% | None listed |
Ragueneau has the most fire around it, a high band against Pointe-Lebel’s low.
Radon is the survey area’s figure, so neighbours in one area share it.
Get ready for what Pointe-Lebel faces
Practical steps for Pointe-Lebel’s 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
- Wildfire counts one way. For Pointe-Lebel, 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. NRCan’s inventory says where flood mapping exists, not where water goes; the map’s owner is the authority for Pointe-Lebel.
- Earthquakes are modelled. Seismic risk is NRCan’s model of yearly building losses from shaking, averaged over many years and given for Pointe-Lebel’s census subdivision (a neighbourhood shows its city’s).
- Radon is a survey. About 14,000 homes were tested across Canada in 2009–2011, and the share over the guideline for Pointe-Lebel is its health region’s, the survey’s design unit.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Pointe-Lebel
Does Pointe-Lebel flood?
The inventory has 0 studies for Pointe-Lebel, and an empty list isn’t a clean bill: the municipality holds any flood maps.
Is Pointe-Lebel at risk of wildfire?
Some, but Pointe-Lebel’s low band (1.5% of nearby land burned since 1986, latest 2022) is short of the level that counts.
How is Pointe-Lebel’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Pointe-Lebel’s Hazard risk grade is B−, built on earthquakes and radon with a one-sided wildfire input.
How big is the earthquake risk in Pointe-Lebel?
NRCan’s model expects shaking to cost buildings in Pointe-Lebel $0.11 a year for every $1,000 of their value, on average over many years.
Is radon a problem in Pointe-Lebel?
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 Pointe-Lebel.
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).