A NSW Government website

Understanding the effects of the 2019–20 fires

Our scientists are working to provide the best available information and data to understand how the 2019–20 fires are affecting the NSW environment and communities.

 

The 2019–20 bushfires were unprecedented in their extent and intensity, with fire grounds in New South Wales covering 5.5 million hectares (7% of the state), including over 2.7 million hectares of national parks (38% of the NSW national park system).

Our scientists have been collecting information since the fires began. Though the fire events are over, the science of understanding what happened is still going. We will be doing post-fire assessments for many years to come to fully understand the effects of the 2019–20 fires. This will enable us monitor recovery and renewal to ensure that decisions are informed by the best possible science.

Our data and information are shared across emergency response agencies, including the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), and with environmental organisations to support conservation decisions and on-ground actions.

As more data comes through about the fire events, we update and refine bushfire related datasets to inform conservation actions being taken. These are published as part of our NSW Government response plan. The data sets are also published on our Sharing and Enabling Environmental Data Portal (SEED) 'Bushfire related datasets' page.

Our research

Below is an outline of the documents that we have published from most recent to when the fires first began:

This page will continue to be updated with relevant data as it becomes available.

Effects of the fires on our environment

How our science is helping recovery

We are helping on-ground conservation actions be as effective and impactful as possible by providing information on which areas need priority support and advice on what actions will be the most beneficial for recovery efforts.

You can read more about specific on-ground actions, such as the supplementary food drops to support brush-tailed rock-wallabies, as well as how you can help with recovery efforts on our Recovering from the 2019–20 fires webpage.