The NSW Bush Fire Prone Land dataset is prepared in accordance with the Guide for Bush Fire Prone Land Mapping (BFPL Mapping Guide) and certified by the Commissioner of NSW RFS Purposes of Section 10.3 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 No 203. Over time there have been various releases of the BFPL Mapping Guide, in which the categories and types of vegetation included in the Bush Fire Prone Land 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 Prone Land 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 hazard vegetation parcels. Vegetation Category 3 consists of: > Grasslands, freshwater wetlands, semi-arid woodlands, alpine complex and arid shrublands. Buffers are created based on the Bush Fire Prone Land vegetation, with buffering distance being 100 metres for Vegetation Category 1 and 30 metres for Vegetation Category 2 and 3. Vegetation excluded from the bush fire vegetation categories may include isolated areas of vegetation less than one hectare or managed lands. Please refer to the latest BFPL Mapping Guide for further information on 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 bush fires. Councils are required to map Bush Fire Prone Land within their local government area, which becomes the trigger for the consideration of bush fire protection measures when developing land. BFPL Mapping Guidelines are available from http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/4412/Guideline-for-Councils-to-Bushfire-Prone-Area-Land-Mapping.pdf