Data

The National Bushfire Intelligence Capability (NBIC) builds on new and existing collaborations, data and science.

Available bushfire datasets from this work are featured.

NBIC – Stage 2 data

NBIC Stage 2 will produce national bushfire data for slope, fire weather and fuels, part of the workflow for production of national fireline intensity potential data layers that take into account climate change.

Data for that workflow will be published here as it becomes available.

Fuels

A photo of Eucalypt and Grass tree vegetation layers

The type, structure and arrangement of fuels across a landscape influence fire behaviour characteristics, such as rate of fire spread and fire intensity. The mapping of fundamental vegetation structural attributes, such as canopy height, tree foliage cover and grass cover, allows for broad fuel structural type maps to be generated.

Using this bottom-up approach, the National Bushfire Intelligence Capability (NBIC) has developed a map that describes Australian fuel type classes using the Bushfire Fuel Classification or BFC framework.

Bushfire extents

An animation showing 3 hourly updates for a bushfire impacting Mariginiup, Western Australia in November 2023.

Bushfire extent data or burnt area data tells us where, when and how frequently fire has occurred. National bushfire extent data can be used for effective response coordination and informed decision-making to mitigate and manage future bushfire risks at a national level.

A photo of two people walking down a hospital corridor

Use case: Department of Health and Aged Care

As the national agency responsible for health and wellbeing, the Department of Health and Aged Care needs accurate and timely data and information to manage responses to bushfires for both short- and long-term planning.

NBIC – Stage 1 data

NBIC Stage 1 produced national bushfire behaviour maps that consider future climate over a range of timescales using readily accessible data. This data collection comprises a set of demonstration outputs that show bushfire hazard severity potential and various layers that are used to calculate it.

Data: Fireline Intensity Potential

Use case: Fireline Intensity Potential layers

A landscape image superimposed with coloured dots to represent bushfire risk

Use case: Infrastructure planning and upgrades

Data: Fire Weather Potential

Use case: Updating fire weather potential

Data: Terrain

Access our methodologies

About NBIC

NBIC was co-designed as an innovative science-policy partnership between the disaster risk reduction function of the Commonwealth Government, currently housed in the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to provide national information products and services for bushfire hazard and risk assessment.

The NBIC workflow uses a powerful cloud-based digital platform to enable the rapid co-development, testing and delivery of national extent products. NBIC Stage 2 will build on this work to produce more refined outputs of bushfire hazard, incorporating ongoing advances in data and science to support medium- to long-term decision support needs.

NBIC Stage 1 was funded by the Department of Home Affairs (Disaster Risk Reduction Branch) under the National Partnership Agreement on disaster risk reduction.

Stage 1 focused on developing a long-term fireline intensity potential product to support long-term planning decisions. This stage concluded in 2022.

NBIC Stage 2 was funded by the Australian Climate Service (ACS) (as a NEMA priority) to build on Stage 1 outputs. These included additional products to address near term decision needs. This stage commenced in May 2023 and concluded in June 2025.