Planning for Bush Fire Protection governs every development on bush fire prone land in New South Wales. The first full rewrite since 2019 is on public exhibition until 3 September, and several of the changes land directly on residential work.
The NSW Rural Fire Service has put a complete rewrite of Planning for Bush Fire Protection on public exhibition. Submissions close on Thursday 3 September 2026, and the RFS expects to finalise the document in December.
The change most likely to turn up on a residential site is new. Draft PBP 2026 introduces a firebreak immediately adjacent to and around the building, generally 1.5 metres wide or to the property boundary. PBP 2019 contains no equivalent requirement.
DEFINITION: PLANNING FOR BUSH FIRE PROTECTION
Planning for Bush Fire Protection, known as PBP, is the RFS principal statutory instrument for development on bush fire prone land in New South Wales. It is recognised under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021 and provides the bush fire protection framework used in strategic planning, development assessment and infrastructure assessment. The current legislated version is PBP 2019, adopted on 1 March 2020. Draft PBP 2026 cannot be used or relied on until it is published and recognised under legislation.
What the draft actually changes
The rewrite is structural rather than cosmetic. The RFS has published a summary of key changes running to 28 pages, and the items below are the ones with the clearest line to residential building work.
| Area | PBP 2019 | Draft PBP 2026 |
| Firebreak at the building | No specific requirement immediately adjacent to buildings | New Performance Criteria. Acceptable Solution is a firebreak around the building, generally 1.5 metres or to the boundary |
| Assessment pathways | Acceptable Solutions and Performance Solutions | Adds a Merit Assessment pathway between the two, plus Better Bush Fire Outcomes for existing development |
| Complying development | Requirements spread across chapters | Must use Acceptable Solutions only. No Merit Assessment or Performance Solution |
| Fire weather | FDI areas including FDI 100, FDI 80 and FDI 50 for alpine | Alpine and non alpine fire weather areas only |
| Asset protection zones | Inner Protection Area and Outer Protection Area, with different standards | One APZ management standard. IPA and OPA terminology removed |
| Subdivision radiant heat | Performance based, less explicit | Future building footprints at 29 kW per square metre or less at 1,090 K, or BAL 29 or lower for applicable grassland hazards |
| Planning Direction 4.3 trigger | Applies broadly across Vegetation Categories 1, 2 and 3 | Within 350 metres of Category 1 and 100 metres of Category 2. Category 3 generally excluded |
Source: NSW Rural Fire Service, Summary of key changes between PBP 2019 and draft PBP 2026, 6 August 2026.
None of this is optional reading for anyone building in a mapped area. PBP sits inside the compliance framework a builder works inside rather than beside it, because the outcomes it sets feed straight into what can be approved, where a house can sit on a lot and what it has to be built from.
The firebreak, and why the wording matters
Taken at face value, a 1.5 metre firebreak around a house sounds unremarkable. On a standard suburban lot it is anything but.
The detail that carries the weight is that this is an Acceptable Solution rather than a flat requirement. The draft introduces a Performance Criteria requiring buildings to be sited and designed with a firebreak that minimises fuels adjacent to the building. The 1.5 metre dimension is the pre approved way of satisfying that criteria, and the draft adds the words or to the property boundary, which is an acknowledgement that 1.5 metres is not always available.
On a narrow lot the difference between an Acceptable Solution and a Performance Criteria is the difference between a setback you cannot achieve and one you have to argue for.
The RFS states the purpose plainly: a clearer and more measurable requirement for the area immediately around buildings, supporting firefighting access, reducing fuel close to structures and improving protection from ember attack and localised fire spread.
For a builder, the practical consequence sits at design stage rather than construction stage. Siting, landscaping, paving, decking, fencing and any structure hard against a wall all become part of whether the criteria is met.
Complying development loses its flexibility
The draft consolidates complying development and section 4.14 considerations into a single chapter, which is a genuine simplification. It also draws a line that was not previously this explicit.
Complying development on bush fire prone land must use Acceptable Solutions only. Other development may use Acceptable Solutions, Merit Assessment or Performance Solutions where they are available.
That matters because the whole point of a complying development certificate is speed. If a site cannot meet the Acceptable Solution on separation distance, construction, access, services or the new firebreak, the fast pathway closes and the job goes to a development application instead. Set against the fast track pathways for low rise homes that New South Wales has been opening elsewhere, this is a reminder that the bush fire layer runs on its own logic.
Fire weather, and why a BAL rating could move
This is the change least likely to be noticed and most likely to cost money.
PBP 2019 assesses fire weather using Fire Danger Index areas, including FDI 100, FDI 80, and FDI 50 for alpine areas. Draft PBP 2026 simplifies that to two categories: alpine fire weather for specified alpine subregions, and non alpine fire weather everywhere else.
The RFS is careful about what it claims here, and so is this article. The stated effect is that the change may affect separation distance, asset protection zone and construction outcomes where the fire weather assumptions change. The RFS does not say which way, and neither can we without site by site assessment.
What can be said is that fire weather is an input into the calculation that produces a Bushfire Attack Level. A change to that input is capable of moving a site between BAL bands, and the cost gap between BAL 12.5 and BAL 40 on a single dwelling is not marginal. Any builder holding a fixed price contract on a bush fire prone site that has not yet been assessed has an interest in how this lands.
It also arrives while the standard underneath bush fire construction is itself changing. Two moving parts at once is worth tracking, because they interact.
Asset protection zones get one standard
Anyone who has prepared or read a bush fire assessment report in New South Wales knows the Inner Protection Area and Outer Protection Area split, with different vegetation management standards applying to each.
The draft removes that terminology entirely. APZ requirements are consolidated into a single appendix with one APZ management standard, and the requirements for APZ definition, canopy cover, shrub cover, lower limb clearance, groundcover and landscaping within APZs are all updated. The relationship between APZs, separation distance, maintained land and ongoing vegetation management is clarified.
That is simpler once learned, and a relearning exercise in the meantime for consultants, certifiers, councils and everyone reading their documents.
Subdivision and rural work
Two changes stand out for anyone doing land development.
The first is that the draft states an explicit radiant heat outcome for future building footprints in residential and rural residential subdivision: 29 kilowatts per square metre or less at 1,090 K, or BAL 29 or lower for applicable grassland hazards. PBP 2019 handles this less directly, and the RFS describes the change as making subdivision requirements clearer and more testable.
The second is a new Merit Assessment pathway for centralised access roads in certain rural subdivision contexts where lot sizes are one hectare or greater and a safer outcome can be demonstrated. The centralised road must be built to a non hazard interfacing road standard, with access to the hazard still provided to at least property access road standard. PBP 2019 does not identify centralised access roads as a subdivision access option at all.
At the strategic end, the trigger for Local Planning Direction 4.3 narrows. It would apply within 350 metres of Vegetation Category 1 and within 100 metres of Vegetation Category 2, with Category 3 generally excluded unless exposure to nearby Category 1 or 2 vegetation creates risk. The RFS describes the effect as reducing assessment requirements for lower risk planning proposals while keeping scrutiny on higher risk ones.
What a builder can do with two days
Submissions close on Thursday 3 September 2026 and are made by email to the RFS development policy address. There is no portal and no form.
The RFS has said it welcomes feedback from councils, industry, government agencies, community organisations and members of the public. Builders and their consultants are among the small number of people who will find out first where a new requirement does not work on a real lot, and the exhibition period is the point at which that is easiest to say.
Beyond the deadline, the draft is a preview of the conditions that will apply to bush fire prone work from next year. That makes it relevant to how quotes are framed and to how a house is put together on a hard site. The RFS summary is a 28 page document describing a 161 page instrument, so anyone assessing a real lot would need the draft itself.
What happens after Thursday
The RFS expects to finalise PBP 2026 and the supporting templates in December 2026, after considering submissions. Until it is published and recognised under legislation, the draft has no legal effect and PBP 2019 continues to apply.
The timing sits alongside a broader reshaping of the New South Wales system, with construction certificates being replaced by building approvals under the new building framework. Both changes will be bedding in through the same period.
THE GOOD BUILDER TAKE
The instinct with a consultation document is to wait until it is law. That instinct is usually right and it is wrong here, for one reason. Every change in this draft feeds a number that goes into a price.
Separation distance, asset protection zone width, the firebreak and the fire weather input all resolve into a Bushfire Attack Level, and a Bushfire Attack Level resolves into a specification and a cost. A builder quoting bush fire prone work in 2027 off assumptions formed under PBP 2019 is quoting off the wrong document.
The exhibition period is also the only point where the people who actually build on these sites get a say before the numbers are fixed. Two days is not much, but an email saying this dimension does not work on a fifteen metre frontage is worth more than a complaint in March.
Frequently asked questions
Planning for Bush Fire Protection, known as PBP, is the NSW Rural Fire Service principal statutory instrument for development on bush fire prone land. It is recognised under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021 and sets the bush fire protection framework used across strategic planning, development assessment and infrastructure assessment in New South Wales. It covers matters including separation distance, asset protection zones, access, water supply, services, construction requirements and emergency planning. The current legislated version is PBP 2019, which was adopted on 1 March 2020.
The draft was placed on public exhibition on 6 August 2026 and submissions close on 3 September 2026. Submissions are made by email to the RFS development policy address. The RFS has said it welcomes feedback from councils, industry, government agencies, community organisations and members of the public, and expects to finalise PBP 2026 and the supporting templates in December 2026 after considering the submissions received.
Draft PBP 2026 introduces a Performance Criteria requiring buildings to be sited and designed with a firebreak that minimises fuels adjacent to the building. The Acceptable Solution is a firebreak immediately adjacent to and around the building, generally 1.5 metres wide or to the property boundary. PBP 2019 contains no specific firebreak requirement immediately adjacent to buildings and instead relies on asset protection zones, defendable space and landscaping requirements. Because the 1.5 metres is an Acceptable Solution rather than a fixed rule, development other than complying development may be able to satisfy the criteria through the Merit Assessment or Performance Solution pathways.
Yes. The draft consolidates asset protection zone requirements into a single appendix and introduces one APZ management standard, replacing the PBP 2019 distinction between Inner Protection Areas and Outer Protection Areas which carried different vegetation management standards. The Inner Protection Area and Outer Protection Area terminology is removed, and requirements for APZ definition, canopy cover, shrub cover, lower limb clearance, groundcover and landscaping within APZs are updated. The draft also clarifies the relationship between asset protection zones, separation distance, maintained land and ongoing vegetation management.
No. The RFS states that the exhibition documents are drafts only, that they may change following public exhibition and in response to changes to relevant planning instruments, legislation and government policy, and that they cannot be used or relied upon until PBP 2026 is published and recognised under the relevant legislation. PBP 2019, as amended by the 2022 and 2025 Addenda, remains the legislated version until that occurs.
Sources: NSW Rural Fire Service, Planning for Bush Fire Protection page and exhibition materials, 6 August 2026; NSW Rural Fire Service, Summary of key changes between PBP 2019 and draft PBP 2026, 6 August 2026; Planning for Bush Fire Protection 2019, adopted under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation on 1 March 2020. This article draws on the RFS published summary of changes rather than a clause by clause reading of the draft instrument, which runs to 161 pages and is available in full on the RFS website.
Last updated: 1 September 2026. The exhibition period closes on 3 September 2026 and the RFS expects to finalise PBP 2026 in December 2026.
General information only. This article describes a draft instrument on public exhibition and the agency summary of it. It does not constitute planning, building or legal advice, and the draft has no legal effect until published and recognised under legislation. Anyone assessing a specific site should work from the exhibited draft and obtain qualified guidance.
Author: TGB Editorial
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