NSW Bush Fire Prone Land

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

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

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

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

The legislative context of this dataset is as follows: 
\nOn 1 August 2002, the Rural Fires and Environmental Assessment Legislation\nAmendment Act 2002 (Amendment Act) came into effect. The Act amended both the\nEnvironmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the Rural Fire Services Act\n1997 to ensure that people, property and the environment are more fully\nprotected against the dangers that may arise from bushfires. Councils are\nrequired to map bushfire prone land within their local government area, which becomes\nthe trigger for the consideration of bushfire protection measures when\ndeveloping 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