Bush Fire Season 2026:
Emergency Planning for NSW Workplaces Near Bushland

The NSW Bush Fire Danger Period starts on 1 October for most of the state, and runs to 31 March. The NSW Rural Fire Service can bring the start date forward for local areas when conditions are dry, and in recent years many councils have started early.

For most workplaces, the emergency plan is built around one scenario: the alarm sounds, everyone walks to the assembly point, and the building is checked. That works for a kitchen fire. It does not work for a bush fire, where the threat is outside the building, it moves, and the safest decision is usually made hours before any flames are visible.

Why a standard evacuation plan fails in a bush fire

A standard evacuation plan answers "how do we get out of the building?" A bush fire plan has to answer different questions:

An assembly point on the edge of your car park may be the worst place to stand if the fire front is coming from the bush behind it. Moving people outside is not automatically moving them to safety.

Trigger points and decision points: decide before the day

The single most important part of a workplace bush fire plan is deciding in advance what you will do, and when. Two tools do that job, and they work together.

Trigger points are conditions that automatically start an action, so nobody has to make a judgement call under pressure. The Australian Fire Danger Rating System gives you a ready-made scale: Moderate, High, Extreme and Catastrophic. A practical plan ties actions to those levels. For example:

Fire danger ratings describe how dangerous a fire would be if one started. Once a fire is actually burning, the Australian Warning System takes over, with three alert levels: Advice, Watch and Act, and Emergency Warning. Your plan should say what the site does at each level, not only at Emergency Warning, which may be too late to leave safely.

Decision points are different. A decision point is the latest moment at which a particular decision can still be made safely. It is usually tied to something you can observe or measure: a fire reaching a particular ridge or road, a fire within a set distance of the site, a set time before the only exit road could be cut, or the time it takes to move everyone off site.

The logic works backwards. If it takes 90 minutes to relocate a childcare centre, and the access road could be cut by fire in two hours, the decision to leave must be made well before either happens. Once a decision point has passed, that option is gone, and the plan moves to the next one, such as sheltering in the most protected part of the building.

Your triggers and decision points will depend on your site, your people, your access roads and the direction fire is likely to come from. The point is that they are written down, mapped where possible, and agreed before the season.

Asset protection zones: the buffer between the bush and your building

An asset protection zone (APZ) is the managed area between bushland and a building. Its job is to reduce the fuel close to the building, so that radiant heat, flame contact and ember attack are lower when a fire arrives. It also gives firefighters a safer space to work.

Under Planning for Bush Fire Protection 2019, an APZ is usually made up of an inner protection area closest to the building, where fuel is kept to a minimum, and an outer protection area further out, where fuel is reduced but tree cover can remain. On bush fire prone land, APZs are often a condition of development consent, and the requirement to maintain them does not end when the building is finished.

In practice, an APZ only works if someone maintains it. Common problems we see on commercial and community sites:

For a workplace, the APZ is part of the emergency plan, not only a landscaping job. It affects whether sheltering on site is a realistic last resort, and how long people have to leave. Your plan should say who is responsible for maintaining the APZ, how often it is checked, and that it is inspected before the start of each season. If you do not know what your site's APZ requirements are, your development consent and any bush fire assessment report for the site are the place to start.

A named decision-maker

"Follow RFS advice" is a starting point, not a plan. Someone has to decide to close the site or send people home early, and that decision often has a cost: lost trading, cancelled appointments, unhappy clients.

If the plan does not name that person, and a backup for when they are away, the decision gets delayed. Leaving late is how people get caught on roads in smoke with fire nearby. Your emergency plan should state who makes the call, what information they use, and that they have the authority to make it without waiting for approval.

Somewhere safe to go

A bush fire plan needs an off-site destination that is well away from bushland and reachable by more than one route. Think through:

Sites with vulnerable occupants

Childcare centres, schools, aged care and healthcare facilities carry extra risk because occupants may not be able to move quickly or on their own. On bush fire prone land, these are classed as special fire protection purpose developments, and Planning for Bush Fire Protection 2019 expects them to have a bush fire emergency management and evacuation plan.

For these sites, early relocation is often the only safe option, because moving infants, residents or patients takes far longer than moving office staff. If your centre's plan relies on leaving once fire is reported nearby, it is relying on time you may not have. See our childcare and education services and AS 4083 healthcare services.

Smoke and air quality

Fires do not have to be close to affect your site. Heavy smoke can make outdoor assembly areas unsafe and trigger alarms in buildings with smoke detection. Your plan should say what happens when air quality is poor: whether people stay inside, how air handling is managed, and when to send vulnerable staff home.

Tell people early, and tell them clearly

Closing a site early only works if everyone knows about it. On a high-risk day, staff, clients, contractors and visitors all need the message before they set off, not when they arrive at a locked gate.

Your plan should set out:

For childcare centres and aged care, family communication is part of the evacuation itself. Parents arriving to collect children from a centre that is relocating can block access roads and put more people in the path of the fire. Tell families where their children will be, before they need to know.

Brief your wardens before the season, not on the day

Wardens are trained for building evacuations. Most have never been briefed on a bush fire plan. Before 1 October, run a short session covering:

A 30-minute briefing at the start of the season is worth more than a thick plan nobody has read. If your warden roster has changed since last summer, and it usually has, the new wardens need it most. Our warden training can include a bush fire module for sites near bushland.

Review the plan after every season

At the end of each season, look back at what happened. Did any trigger points activate? Was the closure decision made on time? Did the communication reach everyone? Update the plan while the lessons are fresh, not next September.

Bush fire checklist for your workplace

Before 1 October, check that your emergency plan covers:

Want a printable version? Download the free one-page Bush Fire Readiness Checklist, with 30 checks across six areas.

If any of these are missing, your plan was written for a building fire, not a bush fire. Your AS 3745 emergency procedures should reflect the risks your site actually faces, and for sites near bushland, that includes bush fire.

Get your plan ready before the season starts

Compliance Ready reviews emergency plans for sites across the Sydney basin, including trigger points and relocation arrangements for sites near bushland. Book a free site review, or contact us on 02 7247 6830 or office@complianceready.com.au.