Terms of Use & Privacy

Digital Services International Pty Ltd · Last updated 25 September 2026

1. About this site

Fire Down Under (firedownunder.au) is a free, advertising-free map published by Digital Services International Pty Ltd (Queensland, Australia), referred to below as "we", "us" and "our". It gathers fire incident information that Australian emergency services already publish, satellite heat detections published by Geoscience Australia, and rain radar imagery published by the Bureau of Meteorology, and draws them on one map.

We do not collect, verify, assess or issue any of this information. We display it. By using the site you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the site.

2. Not an official warning service

This is the most important term on this page, so it is set out in full.

• We are not an emergency service. We have no affiliation with, and no endorsement from, the NSW Rural Fire Service, the Queensland Fire Department, Emergency Management Victoria or VicEmergency, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services WA, Geoscience Australia, or the Bureau of Meteorology.
• The information is delayed. Feeds are re-read roughly every five minutes and are cached in between. Satellite hotspots can be one to several hours old. A fire can start, spread and threaten lives well inside those gaps.
• The information can be incomplete or wrong. Not every state publishes every incident. Feeds fail, agencies change formats without notice, and warnings are sometimes withdrawn or corrected. An empty map does not mean there is no fire.
• Satellite hotspots are detections, not fires. A hotspot means a satellite measured heat at that point. It may be a bushfire, a hazard reduction burn, a farm burn-off, industry, a flare stack, or a false detection from cloud or bare ground. Positions are approximate, typically to within a few hundred metres to a few kilometres depending on the sensor.
• Rain radar shows where rain is, not where it will be. Radar imagery also picks up returns that are not rain.
• Always follow official advice. Where anything on this site differs from an official warning, the official warning is correct and this site is not.

Official sources

• Emergency: Triple Zero (000)
• NSW — Fires Near Me, NSW RFS
• Queensland — Queensland Fire Department
• Victoria — VicEmergency
• Western Australia — Emergency WA
• South Australia — SA CFS
• Tasmania — Tasmania Fire Service
• Northern Territory — SecureNT
• ACT — ACT Emergency Services Agency
• Weather warnings — Bureau of Meteorology

3. Data sources and attribution

All information shown on the map is sourced from the organisations below and remains their material.

Nothing on this site should be read as a claim of ownership over that material, or as any endorsement of this site by those organisations. If you are one of these data custodians and you want the use of your material changed or stopped, contact us using the details below and we will act on it promptly.

4. Permitted use

You may use the site for personal, non-commercial information purposes. You must not:

• scrape, bulk-download, mirror or systematically extract data from the site or its /api/ endpoints, or use automated means to access it in a way that places an unreasonable load on this site or on the upstream agencies;
• re-publish, redistribute or resell the underlying feeds obtained through this site — go to the source agencies, whose terms govern that use;
• present the information as official, or in a way that could lead someone to believe it comes from an emergency service;
• use the site in any way that interferes with it, breaches any law, or infringes anyone's rights.

We may rate-limit, block or withdraw access to the site at any time, without notice, including to protect the upstream services.

5. Availability

The site is provided free of charge and on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We give no undertaking that it will be available, current, uninterrupted or error-free, and we may change, suspend or discontinue it, in whole or in part, at any time without notice. Fire weather is exactly when third-party feeds are most likely to fail under load.

6. Disclaimer and limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we exclude all representations, warranties and guarantees relating to the site and its content, including as to accuracy, completeness, currency, reliability or fitness for any purpose.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any loss, damage, injury or cost, however arising (including in negligence), that results from your use of, or reliance on, this site or anything on it — including any decision made or not made about property, travel, livestock, evacuation or personal safety.

Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any guarantee, right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)) or any other law that cannot lawfully be excluded. Where our liability can be limited but not excluded, our liability is limited, at our option, to re-supplying the relevant service or paying the cost of having it re-supplied.

7. Privacy

We have built this site to need as little information about you as possible.

What we do not do

• We do not ask you to create an account, and we collect no name, email address or contact details.
• We do not set advertising or tracking cookies, and we run no advertising.
• We do not sell, rent or share personal information with anyone for marketing.
• We do not build a profile of you, and we do not store your location history.

Approximate location

So that the map can open near you rather than in the middle of the continent, our server reads the approximate location that Cloudflare derives from your network connection — typically accurate to a city or region. It is used to set the initial map position in your browser and is not stored by us or linked to you.

Precise location

The "Near me" button and the map's locate control ask your browser for your device's location. Your browser will prompt you, and you can refuse. If you allow it, the coordinates are used in your browser to move the map. They are not sent to our servers, not stored, and not shared.

Server logs and security

Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, Inc., processes requests to this site and keeps standard, short-lived technical logs (including IP address, request time, URL, user agent and response status) for delivery, abuse prevention and security. That processing is governed by Cloudflare's privacy policy. We use this only in aggregate, to keep the site running.

Third-party requests

Map tiles and fonts are requested by your browser from map-au.digitalservices.net.au, which we operate. The fire, hotspot and radar data are fetched by our server, not by your browser, so the agencies do not see your IP address.

Your rights

We handle any personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. Because we hold no account data, there is generally nothing held about you to access or correct. If you believe we hold information about you, or you wish to make a privacy complaint, contact us below. If you are not satisfied with our response you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

8. Intellectual property

The design, code and presentation of this site are owned by Digital Services International Pty Ltd. The underlying data remains the property of the organisations listed in section 3 and is used subject to their terms. Our name and logo may not be used without permission.

9. Third-party links

Links to agency and other external sites are provided for convenience. We do not control them, are not responsible for their content, and a link is not an endorsement.

10. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms at any time by publishing a revised version on this page, with a new "last updated" date. Continued use of the site after that date means you accept the revised terms.

11. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of Queensland, Australia. You and we submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Queensland and the courts able to hear appeals from them.

12. Contact

Questions, corrections, takedown requests or privacy enquiries: support@digitalservices.net.au. We aim to respond to data custodians and privacy enquiries within five business days.