Photo: Pierre-Olivier Combelles · CC BY-SA 3.0Few places are as safe from hazards as Romaine 2: it beats 87% of Canadian towns
Little of the land around Romaine 2 has burned: 0.1% within 25 km since 1986, or 0.004% a year. Seismic risk runs low: $0.015 of expected damage per $1,000 of buildings a year, the typical town $0.030. About as many homes carry radon around Romaine 2 as elsewhere, 4.7% over the guideline where the typical town has 6.6%. Hazard risk gives Romaine 2 a grade of A; its wildfire band pulls it down.
What stands out about Romaine 2’s hazards
Four national sources, each read for Romaine 2: earthquakes, radon, past fires and flood studies.
What Romaine 2 faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Romaine 2 grades A for hazard risk
Seismic risk and radon set Romaine 2’s 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 Romaine 2 has burned: 0.5% within 5 km, 0.1% within 25 km since 1986
Fires mapped since 1986 around where Romaine 2’s residents live, and the fuel next to their homes.
Romaine 2 burns at 0.004% a year, low against 0.000% for the typical Canadian town.
Forest fuel covers 11% of the land close to Romaine 2 and 46% across 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
Mistissini burns fastest in Quebec at 0.31% a year; Romaine 2, at 0.004%, ranks 29th 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.
7.5% of Canada’s 2,610 towns burn fast enough to rank moderate or above; Romaine 2 stays low, with 92%.
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 Romaine 2
Flood studies whose area touches Romaine 2, from NRCan’s inventory, each linked to its owner.
Canada’s Flood Map Inventory lists no study whose area touches Romaine 2, which doesn’t mean it has never been mapped.
Towns with a flood study on file
Flood maps are thinner in Quebec, 45% of towns against 58% nationally, and Romaine 2 has none.
NRCan Canada Flood Map Inventory: a study footprint touching the town’s boundary; towns of 2,500 people or more.
Flood mapping is shown for Romaine 2 to be opened and checked, never turned into a grade.
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.”
Little shaking expected in Romaine 2: $0.015 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.
At $0.015 per $1,000, Romaine 2 carries 0.5 times the typical Canadian town’s earthquake risk ($0.030): low.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Earthquake risk in Quebec peaks in La Pocatière ($0.48); Romaine 2, at $0.015, 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.
Earthquakes cost less around Romaine 2 than in 72% of Canada’s 2,611 towns.
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 Romaine 2’s 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).
4.7% of homes tested around Romaine 2 are over the radon guideline
Health Canada’s survey of long-term home tests: the share above the 200 Bq/m³ guideline.
The survey area of Romaine 2 reads 4.7%, a shade from the typical Canadian town’s 6.6%.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
Radon runs lower around Romaine 2 than in most towns in Quebec: 4.7% against 8.2%.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Few tests over the guideline: Romaine 2 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.
The survey sampled homes around Romaine 2; 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 Romaine 2
Alerts for Romaine 2 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. |
Alert Ready carries evacuation orders for Romaine 2 to phones; CWFIS shows the day’s fire danger.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Get ready for what Romaine 2 faces
Practical steps for Romaine 2’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
- Radon is a survey. About 14,000 homes were tested across Canada in 2009–2011, and the share over the guideline for Romaine 2 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 Romaine 2’s 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 Romaine 2’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 Romaine 2.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Romaine 2
How is Romaine 2’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Hazard risk gives Romaine 2 A, weighing earthquakes and radon and counting wildfire only against it.
Is Romaine 2 at risk of wildfire?
Not much by Canadian standards: Romaine 2’s band is low, with 0.1% of the land within 25 km burned since 1986 (last in 2024), so wildfire doesn’t change its grade.
Is radon a problem in Romaine 2?
4.7% of the 107 homes Health Canada tested around Romaine 2 topped the guideline; your own house needs its own test.
Does Romaine 2 flood?
No study on Canada’s Flood Map Inventory covers Romaine 2 (0), which doesn’t mean it has never been mapped, so ask the municipality.
How big is the earthquake risk in Romaine 2?
About $0.015 a year per $1,000 of building value, NRCan’s long-run expectation for Romaine 2.
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).