Photo: Malimage · CC BY-SA 3.0Hazards in Maizerets: wildfire low, radon over the guideline in 8.8% of tested homes
Wildfire isn’t Maizerets’ worry: 0% of the land within 25 km burned since 1986 (0.000% a year). Earthquakes add more: NRCan’s model puts building losses at $0.14 a year per $1,000 of value, against $0.030 for the typical town. Hazard risk gives Maizerets a grade of C−, from earthquakes and radon alone.
What stands out about Maizerets’s hazards
Four national sources, each read for Maizerets: earthquakes, radon, past fires and flood studies.
What Maizerets faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Hazard risk in Maizerets: C−
Seismic risk and radon set Maizerets’ grade, wildfire can drag it down, and flood mapping stays out of it.
Its place: #294 of 507 in Quebec and #2,256 of 2,589 Canadian towns.
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.
Wildfire is rare near Maizerets: 0% of the land within 25 km burned since 1986, 0% within 5 km
Past fire around Maizerets’ homes, from the national burned-area record, with the fuel within 5 km.
A burn rate of 0.000% a year keeps Maizerets in the low band (the typical Canadian town: 0.000%).
The closest burn since 1986 lies 16 km from Maizerets’ homes, none within 5 km.
Forest fuel rises from 0.1% within 5 km of Maizerets to 21% within 25 km: the fuel lies away from homes.
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 513
Near-zero burning puts Maizerets with 144 of the 513 towns in Quebec, far below Mistissini 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.
Most of the country’s 2,610 towns are low-band (92%, against 7.5% above); around Maizerets, 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.
No flood study is listed for Maizerets
What Canada’s Flood Map Inventory lists for Maizerets: who studied flooding and where to see their maps.
No flood study on the national inventory covers Maizerets; ask the municipality, which is the authority for its flood maps.
Towns with a flood study on file
Only 45% of towns in Quebec have a flood study, short of Canada’s 58%, and Maizerets is not among them.
NRCan Canada Flood Map Inventory: a study footprint touching the town’s boundary; towns of 2,500 people or more.
Flood is shown here, never graded: a study says where a map exists, not how many of Maizerets’ homes stand in a flood zone.
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.”
High seismic risk in Maizerets: $0.14 per $1,000 of buildings a year
Expected yearly building losses from earthquakes, from Natural Resources Canada’s model.
Maizerets’ $0.14 is about 4.6 times the typical town’s $0.030: it sits in one of Canada’s more active seismic zones.
For earthquake risk, the only official count covers all of the city of Québec, Maizerets included.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Shaking damage around Maizerets runs at $0.14 a year, near the $0.14 of the typical town in Quebec; La Pocatière has $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.
More earthquake risk than most: only 20% of Canada’s 2,611 towns are above Maizerets.
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).
The loss is to Maizerets’ buildings alone, from ground shaking; infrastructure and secondary hazards are left out.
Natural Resources Canada, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model (2022), by census subdivision (2016 boundaries; a few 2021 subdivisions take their residents’ mean).
Radon about average around Maizerets: 8.8% over the guideline
Long-term radon tests in homes across the survey area, against Health Canada’s guideline. · Area-wide: radon tests, counted over the Capitale-Nationale health region
Around Maizerets, 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
Maizerets’ area, at 8.8%, is close to the median in Quebec (8.2%); 2.5% of its tests passed 600 Bq/m³.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
37% of Canada’s 2,611 towns share Maizerets’ band of 5 to 10%; 26% sit higher.
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.
Basements, soil and how a house is sealed decide its radon, so in Maizerets only a test can say.
Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes (2009–2011).
Weather and fire alerts for Maizerets
Environment and Climate Change Canada issues the weather alerts for Maizerets; 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 Maizerets, and listen to local authorities for orders.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
How Maizerets’ neighbours compare on hazards
Wildfire band, earthquake risk, radon and flood studies for each place nearby.
| Town | Wildfire | Quake $/1,000 | Radon | Flood study |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maizerets | Low | $0.14 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Vieux-Limoilou 14,347 · 1.6 km | Low | $0.14 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Lairet 15,251 · 1.7 km | Low | $0.14 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Vieux-Moulin 15,935 · 1.9 km | Low | $0.14 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Saint-Rodrigue 12,018 · 2.7 km | Low | $0.14 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Saint-Roch 8,381 · 2.9 km | Low | $0.14 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Jésuites 15,792 · 3.1 km | Low | $0.14 | 8.8% | None listed |
The neighbour with the most fire is Vieux-Limoilou (low), still no more than Maizerets (low).
Radon is the survey area’s figure, so neighbours in one area share it.
Get ready for what Maizerets faces
Practical steps for Maizerets’ 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
- Radon is a survey. About 14,000 homes were tested across Canada in 2009–2011, and the share over the guideline for Maizerets is its health region’s, the survey’s design unit.
- Wildfire counts one way. The wildfire figure is the share of land within 25 km of Maizerets’ homes burned each year from 1986 to 2025, past fire rather than a forecast, and it can only lower Risk.
- 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 Maizerets’.
- 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 Maizerets.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Maizerets
How big is the earthquake risk in Maizerets?
In NRCan’s seismic model, Maizerets’ buildings lose $0.14 per $1,000 of value in an average year.
How is Maizerets’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Hazard risk gives Maizerets C−, weighing earthquakes and radon and counting wildfire only against it.
Is Maizerets at risk of wildfire?
Not much by Canadian standards: Maizerets’ band is low, with 0% of the land within 25 km burned since 1986 (last in 2022), so wildfire doesn’t change its grade.
Is radon a problem in Maizerets?
8.8% of the 160 homes Health Canada tested around Maizerets topped the guideline; your own house needs its own test.
Does Maizerets flood?
No study on Canada’s Flood Map Inventory covers Maizerets (0), which doesn’t mean it has never been mapped, so ask the municipality.
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).