If you wish to build or do renovations which will require council consent and the property is in a bushfire prone area, all work must now comply with a set of standards in order for council to pass your development application or approve the work on completion.

Bushfire Prone areas are those that can support a bushfire or are likely to be subject to bushfire attack. Usually this applies to areas which include or are close to bushfire hazards such as forest or grasslands.

Development in bushfire prone areas is subject to guidelines in the Australian Standard: 3959 Construction of Buildings in Bushfire Prone Areas (AS:3959). You can view a short version of AS:3959 here (45kb pdf), but please note that it is a short version only for overview purposes, and should not be used as a reference tool.

You can find out if you live in a bushfire prone area by asking your local council and looking at their Bush Fire Prone Land Map. This will also be noted on a Section 149 Certificate for your property, obtainable from your Council.

ABAC can help you with all facets of AS:3959 compliance. Simply establish contact with us for an outline of the process and let us take the worry out of this important and essential step towards your project's timely and economic completion.

The Rural Fire Service has a wealth of information on this process, including many downloads.

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