Photo: Nicolas Gagnon · Public domainOn hazards, Rivière-Bleue comes out behind 85% of Canadian towns
No wildfire is mapped within 25 km of Rivière-Bleue’s homes since 1986 (0% of the land, 0.001% a year). Earthquakes add more: NRCan’s model puts building losses at $0.073 a year per $1,000 of value, against $0.030 for the typical town. More homes than usual carry radon here, 14% over the guideline where the typical town has 6.6%. Rivière-Bleue grades D for hazard risk; wildfire is low here, so it earns no credit.
What stands out about Rivière-Bleue’s hazards
For Rivière-Bleue, from NRCan’s seismic model, Health Canada’s radon survey, the national burned-area record and the flood map inventory.
What Rivière-Bleue faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Rivière-Bleue grades D for hazard risk
For Rivière-Bleue, Risk will be the average of earthquakes and radon, with wildfire added only if it makes the average worse.
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.
Little of the land around Rivière-Bleue has burned: 0% within 5 km, 0% within 25 km since 1986
Fires mapped since 1986 around where Rivière-Bleue’s residents live, and the fuel next to their homes.
With 0.001% burned a year, Rivière-Bleue is among the many low-band places (the typical Canadian town 0.000%).
Nothing inside 5 km of Rivière-Bleue’s homes has burned since 1986, and the nearest scar is 12 km off.
48% of the land within 5 km of Rivière-Bleue is forest fuel, close to the 49% 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
In the upper half in Quebec but far from Mistissini (0.31%): Rivière-Bleue ranks 136th of 514, at 0.001% a year.
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.
Rivière-Bleue is in the low band with 92% of Canada’s 2,610 towns; 7.5% sit in moderate or 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 Rivière-Bleue
Flood studies whose area touches Rivière-Bleue, from NRCan’s inventory, each linked to its owner.
Canada’s Flood Map Inventory lists no study whose area touches Rivière-Bleue, which doesn’t mean it has never been mapped.
Towns with a flood study on file
No study touches Rivière-Bleue; 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.
Listed, not scored: a flood study proves a map exists, not that Rivière-Bleue floods.
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 Rivière-Bleue’s costliest hazard: $0.073 a year per $1,000
NRCan’s seismic risk model: the damage shaking is expected to do to buildings each year, on average over many years.
Roughly 2.4 times the typical $0.030: Rivière-Bleue’s $0.073 marks real seismic exposure.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Below the middle in Quebec: Rivière-Bleue’s $0.073 against a median of $0.14; 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 28% of Canada’s 2,611 towns are above Rivière-Bleue.
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 Rivière-Bleue.
Natural Resources Canada, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model (2022), by census subdivision (2016 boundaries; a few 2021 subdivisions take their residents’ mean).
14% of homes tested around Rivière-Bleue are over the radon guideline
Health Canada’s survey of long-term home tests: the share above the 200 Bq/m³ guideline.
the typical Canadian town has 6.6% over the guideline; Rivière-Bleue’s area has 14%.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
Around Rivière-Bleue, 14% of tests were over 200 Bq/m³ and 1.8% over 600, against a median of 8.2% in Quebec.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Rivière-Bleue is in the 10–20% band, with 22% of Canada’s 2,611 towns; only 4.6% are 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.
Whatever Rivière-Bleue’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). · Radon tests: one figure for all of the Bas-Saint-Laurent health region
Where to get warnings in Rivière-Bleue
Alerts for Rivière-Bleue 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 Rivière-Bleue 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)
How Rivière-Bleue’s neighbours compare on hazards
The same four hazards for the places next door.
| Town | Wildfire | Quake $/1,000 | Radon | Flood study |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rivière-Bleue | Low | $0.073 | 14% | None listed |
| Pohénégamook 2,488 · 18 km | Low | $0.084 | 14% | None listed |
Rivière-Bleue’s low band tops its neighbours; Pohénégamook is next (low).
Radon is the survey area’s figure, so neighbours in one area share it.
Get ready for what Rivière-Bleue faces
Practical steps for Rivière-Bleue’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.
- Clear needles and wood nearby.
- Keep a grab-and-go bag ready.
- In smoke, stay in; filter air.
- Has it had a radon test?
- Ask the municipality for flood maps.
- Are flood and wildfire insured?
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Wildfire counts one way. For Rivière-Bleue, wildfire means how much nearby land burned in the past forty years, a one-way input that can pull Risk down and nothing more.
- Earthquakes are modelled. Seismic risk is NRCan’s model of yearly building losses from shaking, averaged over many years and given for Rivière-Bleue’s census subdivision (a neighbourhood shows its city’s).
- 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 Rivière-Bleue.
- Radon is a survey. About 14,000 homes were tested across Canada in 2009–2011, and the share over the guideline for Rivière-Bleue is its health region’s, the survey’s design unit.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Rivière-Bleue
Does Rivière-Bleue flood?
The inventory has 0 studies for Rivière-Bleue, and an empty list isn’t a clean bill: the municipality holds any flood maps.
How big is the earthquake risk in Rivière-Bleue?
Expected earthquake damage in Rivière-Bleue comes to $0.073 a year for each $1,000 that buildings are worth.
Is Rivière-Bleue at risk of wildfire?
Some, but Rivière-Bleue’s low band (0% of nearby land burned since 1986, latest 1999) is short of the level that counts.
Is radon a problem in Rivière-Bleue?
The area’s survey found 14% of 171 tested homes above Health Canada’s guideline, so a three-month test is worth doing in Rivière-Bleue.
How is Rivière-Bleue’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Rivière-Bleue’s Hazard risk grade is D, built on earthquakes and radon with a one-sided wildfire input.
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).