Situational awareness platform for Canadian public safety and emergency management. Data is fetched automatically — no manual refresh needed.
| Feed | Source | Client | Cache |
|---|---|---|---|
| NAAD Alerts | Pelmorex TCP | 10 sec | Live |
| Heartbeat | NAAD | 15 sec | Live |
| Weather Radar | RainViewer | 2 min | 2 min |
| Wildfires | CWFIS (NRCan) | 5 min | 5 min |
| Hotspots | NASA FIRMS VIIRS | 5 min | 10 min |
| Earthquakes | USGS | 5 min | 5 min |
| River Levels | ECCC Hydrometric | 5 min | 10 min |
| Air Quality | ECCC AQHI (obs + forecast) | 5 min | 15 min |
| Power Outages | FortisAlberta + ATCO Electric + BC Hydro | 5 min | 5 min |
| NOTAMs | Configurable | 5 min | 10 min |
| Smoke Forecast | ECCC FireWork (WMS) | Client | WMS tiles |
| Situation Ticker | Claude AI (Anthropic) | 5 min | 5 min |
| Space Weather | NOAA SWPC Scales | 5 min | Client |
| 🔥 FireSense | Open-Meteo GEM + Van Wagner FWI | On demand | 4 hrs |
| 📻 APRS Beacons | APRS-IS (rotate.aprs2.net) | 30 sec | Live (2h TTL) |
| 🏜️ Drought Monitor | Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada (WMS) | On toggle | WMS tiles |
| 🌐 NetSense | IODA (Georgia Tech/CAIDA) | 5 min | 5 min |
| ☢️ RadSense | Safecast (CC0) | 5/10 min | 5 min |
| 📶 CellSense | OpenCellID + SRTM/Mapzen Terrain | Pre-computed (monthly) | Static |
| 🏜️ Drought Monitor | AAFC (agriculture.canada.ca) | On demand | 24 hrs |
🔥 FireSense — Wildfire Startup Risk Methodology
FireSense is Hazardscape's custom wildfire ignition risk overlay. It computes wildfire startup potential across ~85 sample points spanning Canada's fire-prone boreal belt, interior BC, prairies fringe, and northern regions. Each point is evaluated using the full Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System (Van Wagner & Pickett, 1985), the same framework used by Canada's official CWFIS.
Data Sources
Weather data comes from Open-Meteo using Environment Canada's GEM (Global Environmental Multiscale) model. For each grid point we fetch: daily max temperature (°C), min relative humidity (%), max wind speed (km/h), and 24-hour precipitation sum (mm). We request 14 days of historical data for FWI warmup plus 3 days of forecast, giving the moisture codes time to accumulate properly.
FWI System Components (Van Wagner 1985)
The FWI System has six components calculated daily in sequence:
FFMC (Fine Fuel Moisture Code) — moisture content of litter and fine fuels. Indicates ease of ignition.
Driven by temperature, humidity, wind, and rain. Start-up value: 85.
DMC (Duff Moisture Code) — moisture in loosely compacted organic layers of moderate depth.
Indicates fuel consumption potential. Includes a day-length adjustment factor by month. Start-up value: 6.
DC (Drought Code) — moisture in deep, compact organic layers. Tracks long-term seasonal drought.
Slow-responding; takes weeks to build. Start-up value: 15.
ISI (Initial Spread Index) — expected rate of fire spread. Derived from FFMC and wind speed.
BUI (Buildup Index) — total fuel available for combustion. Combines DMC and DC.
FWI (Fire Weather Index) — overall fire intensity rating. Combines ISI and BUI.
This is the primary danger rating used across Canada.
DSR (Daily Severity Rating) — difficulty of fire control. Power function of FWI.
FireSense Composite Score (0–100)
The final FireSense score blends four factors:
70% — Normalized FWI (FWI/30 × 100, capped at 100).
Up to +15 pts — Drought bonus when DC exceeds 200.
Up to +10 pts — Duff dryness bonus when DMC exceeds 40.
Up to +10 pts — Trend bonus when the 7-day FWI slope is positive (rising risk). Computed via linear regression over the last 7 days of FWI values; slope × 2, capped at 10. A rising trend toward drier, hotter conditions signals increasing ignition risk even before FWI peaks.
Grid points where the last 3 days of temperature are all below 0°C are automatically scored 0 (frozen/snow-covered).
Trend Analysis & Prediction
A 7-day linear regression on FWI values determines trend direction (rising/falling/stable) and slope. The slope is extrapolated to produce 12-hour and 24-hour FWI predictions. Click any FireSense region on the map to see 17-day, 7-day, and weather charts with trend visualizations in the detail panel.
Visualization
Grid points are rendered as Voronoi polygons — each polygon represents the area closest to that sample point, creating a seamless regional heatmap. Colours range from green (very low risk) through yellow, orange, red, to purple (extreme risk). Click any region for the full FWI breakdown.
FWI Start-up Procedure
Following Turner & Lawson (1978), we initialize with spring start-up defaults for areas with significant winter snow cover: FFMC=85, DMC=6, DC=15. The 14-day historical warmup allows the moisture codes to reach realistic values before the forecast period. Days below -5°C are skipped as the FWI system is not meaningful when fuels are frozen.
References: Van Wagner, C.E.; Pickett, T.L. (1985). Equations and FORTRAN program for the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System. CFS Forestry Tech. Report 33. · Turner, J.A.; Lawson, B.D. (1978). Weather in the CFFDRS: A user guide. · Lawson, B.D.; Armitage, O.B. (2008). Weather Guide for the CFFDRS.
Abbreviations:
FWI — Fire Weather Index
FFMC — Fine Fuel Moisture Code
DMC — Duff Moisture Code
DC — Drought Code
ISI — Initial Spread Index
BUI — Buildup Index
DSR — Daily Severity Rating
RH — Relative Humidity
GEM — Global Environmental Multiscale
CFFDRS — Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System
CWFIS — Canadian Wildland Fire Information System
ECCC — Environment and Climate Change Canada
Note: FireSense is an independent calculation by Hazardscape, not an official CWFIS product. It uses the same published FWI equations but differs in grid resolution, weather data source, and composite scoring methodology. Always consult cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca for official Canadian fire danger ratings.
📶 CellSense — Cell Coverage Analysis Methodology
CellSense is Hazardscape's cell coverage estimation overlay. It combines cell tower location data with terrain elevation analysis to model where cellular signals can and cannot reach across Canada. Unlike carrier-published coverage maps (which use proprietary RF propagation models and tend to be optimistic), CellSense uses an independent line-of-sight (LOS) terrain obstruction approach to identify areas where mountains, ridges, and valleys block cell signals — the true dead zones.
Data Sources
Tower locations: OpenCellID (opencellid.org), the world's largest open database of cell towers
with 40+ million entries globally. Canadian towers are sourced from ISED Canada's (Innovation, Science and
Economic Development) Spectrum Management System, which wireless carriers are required to submit to as a
condition of their spectrum licenses. The dataset includes tower coordinates, radio technology (GSM, UMTS, LTE, NR/5G),
carrier identity (MCC/MNC), estimated range, and number of crowd-sourced observations. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Elevation data: AWS Terrain Tiles (Mapzen/Tilezen), derived from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission (SRTM) at ~30m resolution globally. Elevation is encoded in PNG tiles using the Terrarium format:
elevation = (R × 256 + G + B/256) − 32768 metres. Tiles are fetched at zoom level 10 (~150m/pixel) and cached locally.
Antenna heights: Default heights by radio technology — LTE: 30m, UMTS: 35m, GSM: 40m, 5G NR: 25m
above ground level. These represent typical macro cell installations. Where available, actual registered
antenna heights from ISED data supersede defaults.
Coverage Computation Method
Canada is divided into a grid of approximately 5km × 5km cells spanning latitude 42°–62°N,
longitude 141°–52°W. For each grid cell, the algorithm:
1. Tower Discovery — finds all cell towers within 25km using a spatial bucket index
for efficient lookup. The 15 closest towers are selected for detailed analysis.
2. Line-of-Sight Analysis — for each tower beyond 3km distance, a line is traced from the
tower antenna tip to the grid cell at receiver height (2m above ground). Along this line, 20
elevation samples are taken from the terrain data. If any sample point's elevation exceeds the
straight-line height between tower and receiver (accounting for earth curvature drop-off:
d²/2R where R = 6,371km), the signal is considered obstructed. The LOS clearance fraction (0.0–1.0)
represents what percentage of the path is unblocked. Towers within 3km are assumed to have clear LOS.
3. Distance Attenuation — signal strength diminishes with distance following an
inverse-power law: score = 1 − (distance/range)^1.5. Beyond a tower's rated range, a marginal
score of 0.1 is assigned (fringe signal possible but unreliable).
4. Technology Weighting — LTE and 5G NR receive a 10% bonus over legacy technologies,
reflecting their superior spectral efficiency and MIMO capabilities. GSM receives a 10% penalty.
5. Composite Scoring — the final cell score combines all towers using a diminishing-returns
model: the best tower contributes its full signal score, additional towers contribute 30%/i of their
score (where i is their rank). This reflects real-world redundancy — having 5 towers with clear LOS
is better than 1, but the marginal benefit of each additional tower decreases. The composite is capped at 100.
Score Interpretation
80–100% — Excellent: multiple towers with clear line-of-sight. Reliable voice, data, and streaming.
60–79% — Good: solid coverage from at least one tower. Consistent service expected.
40–59% — Fair: coverage present but may be affected by terrain or distance. Signal may drop indoors.
20–39% — Weak: intermittent coverage. Calls may drop; data speeds severely limited.
5–19% — Very Weak: marginal signal. Emergency calls may work; data unlikely.
0–4% — Dead Zone: no towers within range, or all paths blocked by terrain. No cell service expected.
Known Limitations
CellSense models outdoor coverage only. It does not account for: building penetration loss (typically 10–25 dB for residential structures), vegetation absorption (forests can attenuate signals by 5–15 dB), weather effects (heavy rain can degrade signals above 10 GHz), network congestion (many users on one tower), carrier-specific frequency allocations, antenna directionality (azimuth/tilt), or small cell/femtocell deployments. The 5km grid resolution means localised coverage variations (e.g., a valley floor vs. nearby hilltop) may not be captured. Actual coverage may be better or worse than modelled depending on these factors. CellSense is updated monthly when new tower data is released by ISED. Always carry a satellite communicator (InReach, SPOT, etc.) when venturing into areas showing weak or no coverage.
Abbreviations:
LOS — Line of Sight
LTE — Long-Term Evolution (4G)
NR — New Radio (5G)
UMTS — Universal Mobile Telecom System (3G)
GSM — Global System for Mobile Comms (2G)
ISED — Innovation, Science & Economic Development Canada
SRTM — Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
MCC — Mobile Country Code (302 = Canada)
MNC — Mobile Network Code (carrier ID)
MIMO — Multiple-Input Multiple-Output
dB — Decibel (signal strength unit)
RF — Radio Frequency
Note: CellSense is an independent analysis by Hazardscape, not affiliated with any wireless carrier. It uses publicly available tower data and open elevation datasets. For official coverage maps, consult your carrier directly: Bell, Rogers, Telus, Freedom.
Disclaimer — Hazardscape is provided for informational and situational awareness purposes only. It is not a substitute for official emergency alerts, professional judgment, or authoritative sources. Do not rely on this platform for life-safety decisions, evacuation orders, or critical emergency response actions. Data is aggregated from third-party sources and may be delayed, incomplete, or inaccurate. Hazardscape and its creators accept no liability for any loss, damage, or harm arising from the use of this website. Always follow the direction of local authorities and official emergency services. Use at your own risk.
hazardscape.ca
Hazardscape is a free, community-driven situational awareness tool for Canadian public safety and emergency management. If you find it useful, you can buy me a coffee to help keep it running.
Get in touch: colin@imperium.ca
Thank you for your support.
Current version: v0.11.7
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