Photo: simpleinsomnia · CC BY 2.016% of homes tested in Melfort’s area are above the radon guideline
The national fire record shows next to nothing around Melfort, 0% of the land within 25 km since 1986 (0.000% a year). Shaking is less of a worry than in most places, at $0.005 a year per $1,000 of building value ($0.030 typical). Melfort grades B+ for hazard risk; wildfire is low here, so it earns no credit.
What stands out about Melfort’s hazards
Four national sources, each read for Melfort: earthquakes, radon, past fires and flood studies.
What Melfort faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Hazard risk in Melfort: B+
The grade weighs Melfort’s seismic risk and radon equally, and wildfire is one-sided: a high band counts against a town, a low one earns nothing.
Its place: #57 of 104 in Saskatchewan and #1,370 of 2,589 Canadian towns.
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.
Little of the land around Melfort has burned: 0% within 5 km, 0% within 25 km since 1986
Fires mapped since 1986 around where Melfort’s residents live, and the fuel next to their homes.
With 0.000% burned a year, Melfort is among the many low-band places (the typical Canadian town 0.000%).
Land that isn’t forest covers nearly all the ground around Melfort: forest fuel is 0% within 5 km and 0.1% 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 104
Fire has taken almost none of the land around Melfort, as for 54 of the 104 towns in Saskatchewan; La Loche tops the list at 1.94%.
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 Melfort, 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.
Flooding around Melfort is mapped in 2 studies, the newest by Water Security Agency
Flood studies whose area touches Melfort, from NRCan’s inventory, each linked to its owner.
2 studies on the inventory touch Melfort, the newest Water Security Agency’s from 2020, and their areas can be large, so they say maps exist, not that the town floods.
| Study | By | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melfort | Water Security Agency | 2020 | under review · not public |
| Melfort | Water Security Agency | 1982 | final |
Towns with a flood study on file
Melfort is one of the 55% of towns in Saskatchewan with a flood study on file, fewer than Canada’s 58%.
NRCan Canada Flood Map Inventory: a study footprint touching the town’s boundary; towns of 2,500 people or more.
No single decade dominates: 2 studies for Melfort between the 1980s and the 2020s.
Study dates as the NRCan inventory lists them, one count per study touching Melfort.
Listed, not scored: a flood study proves a map exists, not that Melfort 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.
Low seismic risk in Melfort: $0.005 per $1,000 of buildings a year
NRCan’s seismic risk model: the damage shaking is expected to do to buildings each year, on average over many years.
0.2 times the typical $0.030: Melfort’s $0.005 is low for Canada.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
About level with the typical town in Saskatchewan: Melfort’s $0.005 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.
At the bottom of Canada’s range, Melfort has 96% of the 2,611 towns above it.
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).
Roads, pipes and bridges aren’t in Melfort’s figure, nor landslides or tsunami: it is buildings and shaking.
Natural Resources Canada, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model (2022), by census subdivision (2016 boundaries; a few 2021 subdivisions take their residents’ mean).
16% of homes tested around Melfort are over the radon guideline
Health Canada’s survey of long-term home tests: the share above the 200 Bq/m³ guideline.
Melfort’s survey area reads 16% over the guideline, well past the typical Canadian town’s 6.6%. Melfort shares its radon tests numbers with the rest of the Kelsey Trail 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 Melfort has 16%.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
More high tests than most: Melfort sits in a band that only 22% of Canada’s 2,611 towns share, with 4.6% above.
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 Melfort; 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 Melfort
Alerts for Melfort 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 Melfort 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)
Get ready for what Melfort faces
What to do about the hazards Melfort 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.
- 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. Wildfire is read from the national burned-area record around Melfort’s homes since 1986, a history of fire that may lower Risk but never raises it.
- 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 Melfort floods.
- 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 Melfort sits in.
- Earthquakes are modelled. NRCan models what earthquakes would cost buildings each year on average, subdivision by subdivision; Melfort’s figure is its subdivision’s.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Melfort
How big is the earthquake risk in Melfort?
Expected earthquake damage in Melfort comes to $0.005 a year for each $1,000 that buildings are worth.
Is radon a problem in Melfort?
Around Melfort, 100 survey homes were tested and 16% came in over 200 Bq/m³, a guide to the area, not to any one home.
Does Melfort flood?
Melfort’s area has been studied for flooding, and the owner’s map shows which streets lie in a zone; the grade leaves flood out.
How is Melfort’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Hazard risk gives Melfort B+, weighing earthquakes and radon and counting wildfire only against it.
Is Melfort at risk of wildfire?
Hardly at all on record: 0% of the land within 25 km of Melfort since 1986, a low band, though small grass fires aren’t mapped.
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).