Photo: Quintin Soloviev · CC BY 4.0Wildfire low, radon 4.7%: how Sacré-Coeur stands on hazards
Little of the land around Sacré-Coeur has burned: 0.4% within 25 km since 1986, or 0.01% a year. Shaking is a bigger worry than in most places, at $0.16 a year per $1,000 of building value ($0.030 typical). Hazard risk gives Sacré-Coeur a grade of C+; its wildfire band pulls it down.
What stands out about Sacré-Coeur’s hazards
For Sacré-Coeur, from NRCan’s seismic model, Health Canada’s radon survey, the national burned-area record and the flood map inventory.
What Sacré-Coeur faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Sacré-Coeur grades C+ for hazard risk
Seismic risk and radon set Sacré-Coeur’s grade, wildfire can drag it down, and flood mapping stays out of it.
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.
Few fires near Sacré-Coeur: 0% within 5 km, 0.4% within 25 km
Fires mapped since 1986 around where Sacré-Coeur’s residents live, and the fuel next to their homes.
Forty years of fire maps put Sacré-Coeur at 0.01% a year, low next to the typical Canadian town’s 0.000%.
The nearer ring around Sacré-Coeur is less wooded (63% forest fuel) than the land out to 25 km (81%).
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; Sacré-Coeur, at 0.01%, ranks 20th 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.
Low, like 92% of the country’s 2,610 towns: the land around Sacré-Coeur burns, but slower than in the 7.5% above it.
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 Sacré-Coeur
Flood studies whose area touches Sacré-Coeur, from NRCan’s inventory, each linked to its owner.
The inventory has nothing for Sacré-Coeur, but a local or conservation-authority map may still exist.
Towns with a flood study on file
Mapping in Quebec reaches 45% of towns, below the 58% across Canada, and not Sacré-Coeur.
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 Sacré-Coeur’s 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 Sacré-Coeur’s costliest hazard: $0.16 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.
Sacré-Coeur’s $0.16 is about 5.4 times the typical town’s $0.030: it sits in one of Canada’s more active seismic zones.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Sacré-Coeur’s $0.16 is close to the median in Quebec, $0.14; La Pocatière is 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.
More earthquake risk than most: only 14% of Canada’s 2,611 towns are above Sacré-Coeur.
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 Sacré-Coeur.
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 Sacré-Coeur are over the radon guideline
Health Canada’s survey of long-term home tests: the share above the 200 Bq/m³ guideline.
Sacré-Coeur’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
Radon runs lower around Sacré-Coeur 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.
Under 5% puts Sacré-Coeur with 37% of Canada’s 2,611 towns; 63% have more high tests.
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 Sacré-Coeur’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). · Area behind the radon tests figures: the Cote-Nord health region
Where to get warnings in Sacré-Coeur
Environment and Climate Change Canada issues the weather alerts for Sacré-Coeur; 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 Sacré-Coeur, and listen to local authorities for orders.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Get ready for what Sacré-Coeur faces
Practical steps for Sacré-Coeur’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
- 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 Sacré-Coeur floods.
- Earthquakes are modelled. Seismic risk is NRCan’s model of yearly building losses from shaking, averaged over many years and given for Sacré-Coeur’s census subdivision (a neighbourhood shows its city’s).
- Wildfire counts one way. For Sacré-Coeur, wildfire means how much nearby land burned in the past forty years, a one-way input that can pull Risk down and nothing more.
- 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 Sacré-Coeur sits in.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Sacré-Coeur
Does Sacré-Coeur flood?
No study on Canada’s Flood Map Inventory covers Sacré-Coeur (0), which doesn’t mean it has never been mapped, so ask the municipality.
Is radon a problem in Sacré-Coeur?
4.7% of the 107 homes Health Canada tested around Sacré-Coeur topped the guideline; your own house needs its own test.
Is Sacré-Coeur at risk of wildfire?
Not much by Canadian standards: Sacré-Coeur’s band is low, with 0.4% of the land within 25 km burned since 1986 (last in 2023), so wildfire doesn’t change its grade.
How is Sacré-Coeur’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Sacré-Coeur grades C+ for hazard risk, from earthquakes and radon, with wildfire counted only where it lowers the grade.
How big is the earthquake risk in Sacré-Coeur?
Expected earthquake damage in Sacré-Coeur comes to $0.16 a year for each $1,000 that buildings are worth.
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).