Bush Fire Prone Land is mapped within a local government area, which becomes the trigger for planning for bush fire protection. Bush Fire Prone Land mapping is intended to designate areas of the State that are considered to be higher bush fire risk for development control purposes. Not being designated bush fire prone is not a guarantee that losses from bush fires will not occur.
The NSW Bush Fire Prone Land dataset is a map prepared in accordance with the Guide for Bush Fire Prone Land Mapping (BFPL Mapping Guide) and certified by the Commissioner of NSW RFS under purposes of Section 10.3 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 No 203.

Over time there has been various releases of the BFPL Mapping Guide, in which the categories and types of vegetation included in the BFPL map have changed. The version of the guide under which, each polygon or LGA was certified is contained in the data. An area of land that can support a bush fire or is likely to be subject to bush fire attack, as designated on a bush fire prone land map.

The definition of bush fire vegetation categories under guideline version 5b:
* Vegetation Category 1 consists of: > Areas of forest, woodlands, heaths (tall and short), forested wetlands and timber plantations.
* Vegetation Category 2 consists of: >Rainforests. >Lower risk vegetation parcels. These vegetation parcels represent a lower bush fire risk to surrounding development and consist of: - Remnant vegetation; - Land with ongoing land management practices that actively reduces bush fire risk.
* Vegetation Category 3 consists of: > Grasslands, freshwater wetlands, semi-arid woodlands, alpine complex and arid shrublands.
* Buffers are created based on the bushfire vegetation, with buffering distance being 100 metres for vegetation category 1 and 30 metres for vegetation category 2 and 3.

Vegetation excluded from the bushfire vegetation categories include isolated areas of vegetation less than one hectare, managed lands and some agricultural lands. Please refer to BFPL Mapping Guide for a full list of exclusions.

The legislative context of this dataset is as follows:
On 1 August 2002, the Rural Fires and Environmental Assessment Legislation Amendment Act 2002 (Amendment Act) came into effect. The Act amended both the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the Rural Fire Services Act 1997 to ensure that people, property and the environment are more fully protected against the dangers that may arise from bushfires. Councils are required to map bushfire prone land within their local government area, which becomes the trigger for the consideration of bushfire protection measures when developing land. BFPL Mapping Guidelines are available from www.rfs.nsw.gov.au

http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/4412/Guideline-for-Councils-to-Bushfire-Prone-Area-Land-Mapping.pdf

Content Title	NSW Bush Fire Prone Land
Content Type	Hosted Feature Layer, Web Map, Web Application, Aerial Imagery, Basemap, Table, Scene Layer/Scene Layer Package, Datastore, 2D Data, 3D Data, Other, Other Document
Description	Bush Fire Prone Land is mapped within a local government area, which becomes the trigger for planning for bush fire protection. Bush Fire Prone Land mapping is intended to designate areas of the State that are considered to be higher bush fire risk for development control purposes. Not being designated bush fire prone is not a guarantee that losses from bush fires will not occur. The NSW Bush Fire Prone Land dataset is a map prepared in accordance with the Guide for Bush Fire Prone Land Mapping (BFPL Mapping Guide) and certified by the Commissioner of NSW RFS under purposes of Section 10.3 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 No 203. Over time there has been various releases of the BFPL Mapping Guide, in which the categories and types of vegetation included in the BFPL map have changed. The version of the guide under which, each polygon or LGA was certified is contained in the data. An area of land that can support a bush fire or is likely to be subject to bush fire attack, as designated on a bush fire prone land map. The definition of bush fire vegetation categories under guideline version 5b: * Vegetation Category 1 consists of: > Areas of forest, woodlands, heaths (tall and short), forested wetlands and timber plantations. HEX colour code # FF0000 * Vegetation Category 2 consists of: >Rainforests. >Lower risk vegetation parcels. These vegetation parcels represent a lower bush fire risk to surrounding development and consist of: - Remnant vegetation; - Land with ongoing land management practices that actively reduces bush fire risk. HEX colour code # FFD200 * Vegetation Category 3 consists of: > Grasslands, freshwater wetlands, semi-arid woodlands, alpine complex and arid shrublands. HEX colour code # FF8000 * Buffers are created based on the bushfire vegetation, with buffering distance being 100 metres for vegetation category 1 and 30 metres for vegetation category 2 and 3. HEX colour code # FFFF73 Vegetation excluded from the bushfire vegetation categories include isolated areas of vegetation less than one hectare, managed lands and some agricultural lands. Please refer to BFPL Mapping Guide for a full list of exclusions. The legislative context of this dataset is as follows: On 1 August 2002, the Rural Fires and Environmental Assessment Legislation Amendment Act 2002 (Amendment Act) came into effect. The Act amended both the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the Rural Fire Services Act 1997 to ensure that people, property and the environment are more fully protected against the dangers that may arise from bushfires. Councils are required to map bushfire prone land within their local government area, which becomes the trigger for the consideration of bushfire protection measures when developing land. BFPL Mapping Guidelines are available from www.rfs.nsw.gov.au http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/4412/Guideline-for-Councils-to-Bushfire-Prone-Area-Land-Mapping.pdf
Initial Publication Date	DD/MM/YYYY
Data Currency	DD/MM/YYYY
Data Update Frequency	Other - when required
Content Source	Website URL, API, Data provider files, Other
File Type	CSV (.csv), EPS, ESRI File Geodatabase (.gdb), ESRI Shapefile (.shp), Excel (.xlsx), Geography Markup Language (.gml), GeoPDF, GPS Exchange Format (.gpx), GeoJSON, Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), JSON, Keyhole Markup Language (.kml), Keyhole Markup Language Zip (.kmz), MapInfo (.tab), Scene Layer Package (.slpk), TIFF, Web Feature Service, Well Known Text (*.wkt), Document, Imagery Layer, Map Feature Service, Document Link
Attribution	NSW Rural Fire Service 2025
Data Theme, Classification or Relationship to other Datasets
Accuracy	+/- 5m
Spatial Reference System (dataset)	GDA94
Spatial Reference System (web service)	EPSG:4326, EPSG:3857, EPSG:7844, EPSG:900913, Other
WGS84 Equivalent To	GDA94, GDA2020, Other
Spatial Extent
Content Lineage
Data Classification	Business Impact Levels (BIL), Commercial, Confidential, For Office Use Only, NSW:Sensitive Law Enforcement, Protected, Secret, Sensitive:Cabinet, Sensitive:Health Information, Sensitive:Legal, Sensitive:Personal, Sensitive:NSW Cabinet, Sensitive:NSW Government, Top Secret, Unclassified
Data Access Policy	Open, Shared, Restricted, Withdrawn from Service
Data Quality
Terms and Conditions	Creative Commons, Data Sharing Agreement, Memorandum of Understanding, Restricted Licence, Standard Licence
Standard and Specification
Data Custodian	NSW Rural Fire Service
Point of Contact	NSWRFS.GIS@rfs.nsw.gov.au
Data Aggregator
Data Distributor	NSW RFS
Additional Supporting Information
TRIM Number