Photo: Daniel Paquet from Regina, Canada · CC BY-SA 2.025% of homes tested in Foam Lake’s area are above the radon guideline
For Foam Lake, wildfire history is close to nil: 0% of nearby land since 1986, 0.000% a year. Earthquakes matter little: NRCan’s model puts building losses at $0.006 a year per $1,000 of value, against $0.030 for the typical town. Foam Lake grades B− for hazard risk; wildfire is low here, so it earns no credit.
What stands out about Foam Lake’s hazards
Four national sources, each read for Foam Lake: earthquakes, radon, past fires and flood studies.
What Foam Lake faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Foam Lake grades B− for hazard risk
Seismic risk and radon set Foam Lake’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.
Wildfire is rare near Foam Lake: 0% of the land within 25 km burned since 1986, 0% within 5 km
Fires mapped since 1986 around where Foam Lake’s residents live, and the fuel next to their homes.
Foam Lake burns at 0.000% a year, low against 0.000% for the typical Canadian town.
Little near Foam Lake’s homes can carry a forest fire; only 0% of the land within 5 km is forest fuel, and 0% 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 Saskatchewan · highest of 105
Among the 105 towns in Saskatchewan, La Loche burns fastest (1.94% a year); Foam Lake is with the 55 near zero.
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 Foam Lake, 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.
Water Security Agency has mapped flooding for Foam Lake (1 study)
Flood studies whose area touches Foam Lake, from NRCan’s inventory, each linked to its owner.
For Foam Lake the inventory points to Water Security Agency’s 2020 study, whose map is the one to check.
| Study | By | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foam Lake | Water Security Agency | 2020 | under review · not public |
Towns with a flood study on file
Only 55% of towns in Saskatchewan have a flood study, short of Canada’s 58%; Foam Lake is one of them.
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 Foam Lake 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.”
Natural Resources Canada, Canada Flood Map Inventory; links go to each study’s owner.
Earthquakes cost buildings in Foam Lake just $0.006 per $1,000 a year
NRCan’s seismic risk model: the damage shaking is expected to do to buildings each year, on average over many years.
Shaking costs the typical town $0.030 a year; in Foam Lake it is only $0.006, 0.2 times as much.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
About level with the typical town in Saskatchewan: Foam Lake’s $0.006 against $0.006; Weyburn reaches $0.033.
NRCan seismic risk model (2022): mean yearly building loss per $1,000 of value; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Most of Canada’s 2,611 towns (88%) face more earthquake damage than Foam Lake.
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 Foam Lake’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).
25% of homes tested around Foam Lake are over the radon guideline
Health Canada’s survey of long-term home tests: the share above the 200 Bq/m³ guideline.
A higher share than most: 25% of tested homes around Foam Lake, the typical Canadian town 6.6%. Nobody publishes radon tests for Foam Lake alone, so this card uses the figure for the Sunrise RHA.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
The median in Saskatchewan is 9.1% over 200 Bq/m³; the survey area around Foam Lake has 25%.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
One home in five or more tests over the guideline around Foam Lake; 3.1% of Canada’s 2,611 towns are in that band and 1.5% 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.
The survey sampled homes around Foam Lake; it can’t tell you your basement’s level.
Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes (2009–2011).
Weather and fire alerts for Foam Lake
Alerts for Foam Lake 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 Foam Lake to phones; CWFIS shows the day’s fire danger.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Get ready for what Foam Lake faces
Practical steps for Foam Lake’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?
- Check the address on the flood map.
- Are flood and wildfire insured?
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Wildfire counts one way. The wildfire figure is the share of land within 25 km of Foam Lake’s homes burned each year from 1986 to 2025, past fire rather than a forecast, and it can only lower Risk.
- Flood studies aren’t flood zones. The flood inventory points to maps; it is incomplete and not the official source, so ask the municipality about any street in Foam Lake.
- 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 Foam Lake’s.
- Radon is a survey. Health Canada’s survey tested some 14,000 homes over three months; until postal-area boundaries are loaded, Foam Lake takes its 2007 health region’s share.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Foam Lake
How big is the earthquake risk in Foam Lake?
Expected earthquake damage in Foam Lake comes to $0.006 a year for each $1,000 that buildings are worth.
Does Foam Lake flood?
The inventory lists a study touching Foam Lake; whether a given street floods is on that map, not in the grade.
Is Foam Lake at risk of wildfire?
Hardly at all on record: 0% of the land within 25 km of Foam Lake since 1986, a low band, though small grass fires aren’t mapped.
How is Foam Lake’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Foam Lake grades B− for hazard risk, from earthquakes and radon, with wildfire counted only where it lowers the grade.
Is radon a problem in Foam Lake?
The area’s survey found 25% of 108 tested homes above Health Canada’s guideline, so a three-month test is worth doing in Foam Lake.
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).