Controlled burn of harvested wheat fields in Central Victoria

Bushfire

This impact category covers the direct and indirect effects of activities on the incidence or severity of fires, which in turn can have a range of other impacts on natural capital, as well as impacts on humans and property.

Metric:

Area burnt in uncontrolled fires started by the reporting entity

Type

State

Units

Area, e.g. hectares (ha)

Example target

Site-specific

Example methods / guidance / references

What are tiers?

Tier 1

Estimate using own judgement and observations

Tier 2

Estimate using third-party professional estimates or public data

Tier 3

Model or measure based on site-specific surveys/sampling, remote or in-field sensing, laboratory analysis, etc.

Example data sources

Internal records

Third-party data sources

Maps of Australian bushfire activity showing area burnt this year, last year and two years ago are available at MyFireWatch.
Maps of northern Australian fire histories since the year 2000 are available at North Australia & Rangelands Fire Information (NAFI)
Maps showing historical burnt areas across Australia from the early 1900s through to 2023 are available at the Digital Atlas of Australia – Historical Bushfire Boundaries.

Site-specific measurements or model outputs

Data on global monthly burnt areas are available at the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) – MODIS/Terra+Aqua Burned Area Monthly L3 Global 500m SIN Grid V061.

Notes

As uncontrolled fires are likely to be relatively infrequent, it may be appropriate to express this measure as the rolling average for a representative period, e.g. the last 30 years