Photo: Unknown artist Unknown artist · Public domainOn hazards, Dawson comes out behind 96% of Canadian towns
Wildfire is a real hazard for Dawson: 12% of the land within 25 km has burned since 1986, 0.30% a year, in the high band. Shaking is a bigger worry than in most places, at $0.060 a year per $1,000 of building value ($0.030 typical). Radon is higher than usual: 20% of tested homes in the survey area topped the guideline, against 6.6% for the typical town. Dawson grades D− for hazard risk, with wildfire counted against it.
What stands out about Dawson’s hazards
Four national sources, each read for Dawson: earthquakes, radon, past fires and flood studies.
What Dawson faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Dawson grades D− for hazard risk
Seismic risk and radon set Dawson’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.
A high wildfire band for Dawson: 0% within 5 km, 12% within 25 km
Fires mapped since 1986 around where Dawson’s residents live, and the fuel next to their homes.
At 0.30% of the land a year, Dawson’s burn rate is high, many times the typical Canadian town’s 0.000%.
No fire has burned within 5 km of Dawson’s homes since 1986; the nearest burn is 6.8 km away.
Forest fuel covers 78% of the land close to Dawson and 85% 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).
Dawson is one of the few of Canada’s 2,610 towns in the high band (1.9%); 0.2% rank very high.
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 Dawson
Flood studies whose area touches Dawson, from NRCan’s inventory, each linked to its owner.
Canada’s Flood Map Inventory lists no study whose area touches Dawson, which doesn’t mean it has never been mapped.
Towns with a flood study on file
No inventory study touches Dawson, where 58% of Canadian towns have one.
NRCan Canada Flood Map Inventory: a study footprint touching the town’s boundary; towns of 2,500 people or more.
Flood studies don’t enter the grade; they are listed so you can open the official map for Dawson.
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.”
Earthquakes cost buildings in Dawson $0.060 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.
Roughly 2 times the typical $0.030: Dawson’s $0.060 marks real seismic exposure.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
With too few towns in Yukon for a median of their own, Dawson is set beside Canada’s: $0.060 against $0.030.
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 29% of Canada’s 2,611 towns are above Dawson.
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 Dawson’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).
Radon runs high around Dawson: 20% of tested homes over the guideline
Health Canada’s survey of long-term home tests: the share above the 200 Bq/m³ guideline.
Dawson’s area, at 20%, is above the 6.6% of the typical Canadian town, so testing is worth more here than most places. Dawson doesn’t get its own radon tests figures; the ones here come from the Yukon Territory health region.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
With only a few towns in Yukon, there is no local median for Dawson; its area had 5.8% of tests over 600 Bq/m³.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
The 10–20% band holds 22% of Canada’s 2,611 towns, Dawson among them; 4.6% rank 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.
One home in Dawson can be high while next door is low; a three-month test settles it.
Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes (2009–2011).
Weather and fire alerts for Dawson
Alerts for Dawson 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. |
Fire danger and active fires near Dawson are mapped daily by the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System; evacuation orders come from the municipality or province.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Get ready for what Dawson faces
Practical steps for Dawson’s hazards, most pressing first.
- Clear needles and wood nearby.
- Keep a grab-and-go bag ready.
- In smoke, stay in; filter air.
- 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.
- Has it had a radon test?
- Ask the municipality for flood maps.
- How close is the forest edge?
- Are flood and wildfire insured?
What this data can and can’t tell you
- 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 Dawson’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 Dawson.
- Wildfire counts one way. The wildfire figure is the share of land within 25 km of Dawson’s homes burned each year from 1986 to 2025, past fire rather than a forecast, and it can only lower Risk.
- Radon is a survey. About 14,000 homes were tested across Canada in 2009–2011, and the share over the guideline for Dawson is its health region’s, the survey’s design unit.
Questions about flooding and hazards in Dawson
How big is the earthquake risk in Dawson?
About $0.060 a year per $1,000 of building value, NRCan’s long-run expectation for Dawson.
How is Dawson’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Dawson’s Hazard risk grade is D−, built on earthquakes and radon with a one-sided wildfire input.
Is radon a problem in Dawson?
The area’s survey found 20% of 225 tested homes above Health Canada’s guideline, so a three-month test is worth doing in Dawson.
Is Dawson at risk of wildfire?
Wildfire is Dawson’s main hazard, band high: 12% of the land within 25 km burned between 1986 and 2025.
Does Dawson flood?
The inventory has 0 studies for Dawson, and an empty list isn’t a clean bill: the municipality holds any flood maps.
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).