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Real data Fire · Metro For: Metropolitan fire & emergency planners

Greater Sydney: testing where fire coverage really reaches

A metropolitan fire service wants confidence that its station network serves every community fairly. EquiMap tested that question with every Greater Sydney community and all 335 real Fire & Rescue NSW stations, letting evidence, not assumption, set the agenda.

361
communities analysed
110
fire stations (metro)
26
communities >5 km from a station
−0.9
equity gap, modest areas better served
What EquiMap revealed
The result is reassuring and counter-intuitive: Sydney’s most-modest communities sit on average 1.67 km from a station, among the best-served in the city. The genuine opportunities to extend reach are low-density semi-rural areas like Bilpin (36.7 km), Dural and Galston.

Explore the live map

Every Greater Sydney community, coloured by equity gap, distance, or SEIFA profile. White dots are real fire stations. Click any area for its figures.

Colour by
Basemap

The data, several ways

The same finding, seen three ways, a distance-by-advantage gradient, and a ranked shortlist of the communities furthest from help.

Why this matters

The intuitive worry for any metro fire service is that denser, more modest suburbs might be underserved. Here, EquiMap shows the opposite, and being able to evidence that confidently is valuable in its own right, for planning, for budget cases, and for community assurance.

It also sharpens where attention is best spent: a small, named set of fringe communities, rather than a broad city-wide concern. That is the difference between a worry and a workplan.

Method & data: Straight-line distance from each SA2 community centroid to the nearest real fire station, weighted by ABS SEIFA 2021 (relative socio-economic index). Open data: ABS boundaries & SEIFA, Fire & Rescue NSW station feed. Straight-line distance is a transparent first baseline; drive-time is a natural enhancement when road-network or telemetry data is added.

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EquiMap turns open data into a clear picture of where your service reaches well, and where it could reach further.

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