It is the responsibility of the fire control authority to assign low or high fire ratings to areas of land under Part 8 Section 80 of the Electricity Safety Act 1998. These ratings are used in conjunction with the Electricity Safety (Electric Line Clearance) Regulations 2020, the Electricity Safety (Installations) Regulations 2019 and the Electricity Safety (Bushfire Mitigation) Regulations 2013, to prescribe low or high bushfire risk areas.
This dataset defines areas of low fire hazard rating. Areas that are not covered by this layer are rated as having a high fire hazard rating for the purposes of the Electricity Safety Act 1998.
Councils that fall entirely within the former Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) area have been rated as low fire hazard. In the data layer we refer to these councils as "undefined".
Low fire hazard rating areas are usually restricted to irrigated areas and towns where block sizes are small and well maintained. Examples of these are as follows: high density residential areas (i.e. property sizes of up to 0.25ha); industrial and commercial urban areas; high moisture crops (i.e. market gardens); irrigated farmland (but not seasonally irrigated as it must remain irrigated over summer); vineyards; golf courses and sporting ovals (permanently green).
High fire hazard rating areas are defined as any areas not covered by the low hazard rating areas. These areas are said to contain sufficient fuel on the ground to carry a fire.
Hazardous bushfire risk area (HBRA) as defined by the Act, means an area assigned a fire hazard rating of ‘high’. Low bushfire risk area (LBRA) deemed to mean areas assigned a fire hazard rating of ‘low’.
Further detailed information about the Electric Line Vegetation Clearance Project, please visit the following site:
https://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/plan-prepare/building-planning-regulations/electric-line-vegetation-clearance
