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Historical Fire Extent and Severity Mapping (FESM)

Created 24/06/2025

Updated 13/11/2025

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Fire severity is a metric of the loss of biomass caused by fire. In collaboration with the NSW Rural Fire Service, DCCEEW Remote Sensing & Regulatory Mapping team has developed a semi-automated approach to mapping fire extent and severity through a machine learning framework based on satellite imagery. The method uses standardised classes to allow comparison of different fires across the landscape. The FESM severity classes include: unburnt, low severity (burnt understory, unburnt canopy), moderate severity (partial canopy scorch), high severity (complete canopy scorch, partial canopy consumption), extreme (full canopy consumption). Here we provide historical severity mapping for 8 priority regions on National Parks land tenure from 1989/90 to 2015/16, which is based on Landsat satellite imagery. This covers approximately 30% of the NPWS Managed Lands, across a wide range of vegetation types. From 2016/17 to the current fire year, these regions are covered in the statewide FESM data, which is based on Sentinel 2 satellite imagery. Ongoing FESM processing aims to achieve statewide coverage back to 1989/90, in staged released, as resources permit.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Historical Fire Extent and Severity Mapping (FESM)
Language English
Licence Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/en/dataset/4f9433ed-0148-43a0-a986-f8569402d92d
Remote Last Updated 23/10/2025
Contact Point
NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
?datansw@customerservice.nsw.gov.au
Reference Period 01/07/1989 - 06/03/2016
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        151.67725,
        -31.2672
      ],
      [
        151.67725,
        -30.54137
      ],
      [
        152.64404,
        -30.54137
      ],
      [
        152.64404,
        -31.2672
      ],
      [
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      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal DataNSW

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on DataNSW "Historical Fire Extent and Severity Mapping (FESM)". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://data.nsw.gov.au/data/dataset/nsw-historical-fire-extent-and-severity-mapping-fesm