Photo: Hadrianopolis · CC BY-SA 3.0A flood study covers Saint-Joachim: 1 on the national inventory, the newest from Gouvernement du Québec
Wildfire is rare near Saint-Joachim: 0% of the land within 25 km has burned since 1986, a burn rate of 0.000% a year. Earthquakes add more: NRCan’s model puts building losses at $0.15 a year per $1,000 of value, against $0.030 for the typical town. Radon is about average around Saint-Joachim: 8.8% of tested homes in the survey area topped the guideline, against 6.6% for the typical town. Saint-Joachim grades C− for hazard risk; wildfire is low here, so it earns no credit.
What stands out about Saint-Joachim’s hazards
Four national sources, each read for Saint-Joachim: earthquakes, radon, past fires and flood studies.
What Saint-Joachim faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Saint-Joachim grades C− for hazard risk
Two inputs always count for Saint-Joachim, earthquakes and radon; the third, wildfire, counts only against a town.
How sure: The seismic figure is a long-run average from NRCan’s model, not a prediction. Small fires and grass fires are largely missing from the national burned-area record.
Wildfire is rare near Saint-Joachim: 0% of the land within 25 km burned since 1986, 0.1% within 5 km
Past fire around Saint-Joachim’s homes, from the national burned-area record, with the fuel within 5 km.
The land within 25 km of Saint-Joachim burns at 0.000% a year on average, the low band; the typical Canadian town: 0.000%.
Forest thickens with distance from Saint-Joachim: 12% of the land within 5 km, 46% 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
To three decimals the burn rate around Saint-Joachim is zero, as for 145 of the 514 towns in Quebec, while Mistissini reaches 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.
92% of Canada’s 2,610 towns are in the low band and 7.5% above it; Saint-Joachim is among the many where the yearly burn rate 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.
Saint-Joachim is on the flood map inventory: 1 study, by Gouvernement du Québec
What Canada’s Flood Map Inventory lists for Saint-Joachim: who studied flooding and where to see their maps.
The flood study touching Saint-Joachim is Gouvernement du Québec’s, dated 2012; its own map shows the zones street by street.
| Study | By | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beaupré | Gouvernement du Québec | 2012 | final |
Towns with a flood study on file
Only 45% of towns in Quebec have a flood study, short of Canada’s 58%; Saint-Joachim is one of 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 Saint-Joachim’s 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.”
Natural Resources Canada, Canada Flood Map Inventory; links go to each study’s owner.
Shaking is Saint-Joachim’s costliest hazard: $0.15 a year per $1,000
Expected yearly building losses from earthquakes, from Natural Resources Canada’s model.
The typical town loses $0.030 a year to shaking; Saint-Joachim loses $0.15, 5.1 times as much.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Shaking damage around Saint-Joachim runs at $0.15 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 15% of Canada’s 2,611 towns are above Saint-Joachim.
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 model counts damage to Saint-Joachim’s buildings and their occupants from shaking only: not liquefaction, landslides, tsunami or fires after a quake.
Natural Resources Canada, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model (2022), by census subdivision (2016 boundaries; a few 2021 subdivisions take their residents’ mean).
8.8% of homes tested around Saint-Joachim are over the radon guideline
Long-term radon tests in homes across the survey area, against Health Canada’s guideline.
Around Saint-Joachim, 8.8% of tested homes topped the guideline, near the typical Canadian town’s 6.6%. For radon tests, the only official count covers all of the Capitale-Nationale health region, Saint-Joachim included.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
2.5% of tests around Saint-Joachim passed 600 Bq/m³; over 200, its 8.8% matches the median in Quebec, 8.2%.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
A middling share of high tests puts Saint-Joachim with 37% of Canada’s 2,611 towns, below 26% of them.
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 share describes the area, not a house: in Saint-Joachim as anywhere, test to be sure.
Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes (2009–2011).
Weather and fire alerts for Saint-Joachim
Environment and Climate Change Canada issues the weather alerts for Saint-Joachim; 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. |
For fires near Saint-Joachim, the national fire information system maps danger and active fires daily; local authorities give any evacuation order.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Hazards in the places around Saint-Joachim
Wildfire band, earthquake risk, radon and flood studies for each place nearby.
| Town | Wildfire | Quake $/1,000 | Radon | Flood study |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saint-Joachim | Low | $0.15 | 8.8% | Yes |
| Beaupré 4,314 · 4.5 km | Low | $0.11 | 8.8% | Yes |
| Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré 3,173 · 7.3 km | Low | $0.13 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges 4,083 · 9.8 km | Low | $0.17 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Saint-Tite-des-Caps 1,611 · 11 km | Low | $0.21 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Saint-Jean-de-l'Île-d'Orléans 1,006 · 16 km | Low | $0.13 | 8.8% | None listed |
| Berthier-sur-Mer 1,819 · 17 km | Low | $0.16 | 13% | None listed |
The neighbour with the most fire is Beaupré (low), still no more than Saint-Joachim (low).
Radon is the survey area’s figure, so neighbours in one area share it.
Get ready for what Saint-Joachim faces
What to do about the hazards Saint-Joachim faces, and what to ask before you buy.
- 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?
- Check the address on the flood map.
- Are flood and wildfire insured?
- Is earthquake cover included?
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Wildfire counts one way. Wildfire is read from the national burned-area record around Saint-Joachim’s homes since 1986, a history of fire that may lower Risk but never raises it.
- 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 Saint-Joachim sits in.
- 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 Saint-Joachim floods.
- Earthquakes are modelled. NRCan models what earthquakes would cost buildings each year on average, subdivision by subdivision; Saint-Joachim’s figure is its subdivision’s.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Saint-Joachim
Does Saint-Joachim flood?
Saint-Joachim’s area has been studied for flooding, and the owner’s map shows which streets lie in a zone; the grade leaves flood out.
Is Saint-Joachim at risk of wildfire?
Fire has reached 0% of the land around Saint-Joachim since 1986 (last in 2022); at low, it neither helps nor hurts the grade.
Is radon a problem in Saint-Joachim?
Around Saint-Joachim, 160 survey homes were tested and 8.8% came in over 200 Bq/m³, a guide to the area, not to any one home.
How big is the earthquake risk in Saint-Joachim?
NRCan’s model expects shaking to cost buildings in Saint-Joachim $0.15 a year for every $1,000 of their value, on average over many years.
How is Saint-Joachim’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Hazard risk gives Saint-Joachim C−, weighing earthquakes and radon and counting wildfire only against it.
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).