Deal cut to allow fire-fighting bush bashers onto MNC roads, but price to be paid
Before October 7, farmers who drove their DIY firefighting vehicles to assist neighbours were putting themselves at legal risk.
Ellie Chamberlain
October 10, 2025
Should farmers be able to drive unregistered and uninsured vehicles to help fight fires on the Mid North Coast?
This vexed question - which juggles the safety of landowners with the safety of road users - is one the state government has been wrestling with in recent years, and it has finally landed on a policy.
Living in a bushfire prone region, many farmers and other rural residents across the Mid North Coast own vehicles set up to control and fight fires. They’re known as Farm Firefighting Vehicles (FFVs) and because they are often only used on private property, they’re not typically registered or insured for use on public roads.
The condition of these vehicles - as with all bush bashers intended to stay within the boundaries of a property - varies wildly.
A Farm Firefighting Vehicle. Picture supplied: NSW Government
Until October 7, when new regulations came into force in NSW, people who drove an unregistered and uninsured FFV to assist in the fighting of a local fire were breaking the law the moment they left their own property.
It left community-minded members of the public in a quandary. Do I go and help, and risk having an accident when unregistered and unlicensed, or stay away?
In a region becoming more prone to extreme bushfire and flooding events due to the impact of climate change, there is concern over the ageing population of volunteer firefighters, unfilled vacancies for new recruits and services being stretched too thin.
From October 7 people who want to drive an FFV outside of their own property will need a “conditional registration” to legally drive their units on public roads when responding to an emergency near their land.
Credit: NSW Government website.
The registration, which includes CTP insurance, will cost “an estimated” $126 in the first year (inspection included) and $75 in the second year, when an inspection is not required, “subject to CPI and CTP increases”. In the third year, an inspection would be required, but not in the fourth year, and so on.
“FFVs must be inspected and, if necessary, failed like any other vehicle”, Transport for NSW states.
However, a vehicle can still “qualify for conditional registration for firefighting … if the only failure reason/s” are damage to a windscreen, headlight aim, “light transmittance level of windscreen, side and rear windows” and “rust and protrusions”.
The vehicles “must only be used for emergencies, not regular operations”, and vehicles can be driven on roads up to 50km away from the garaging address east of the Newell Highway, with no distance limit from garaging addresses west of the Newell Highway.
While there is general consensus the idea of ensuring FFVs that may be driven off the property are roadworthy, there is debate over whether people who are volunteering to help others in distress should be facing a bill.
What do locals think?
Fourth-generation Toorooka beef cattle farmer, David Duff, said the conditional registration requirements are “probably a good thing”.
“The worst thing that we can have is endangering other road users by not having vehicles fit for public roads,” he told the Mid North Coaster. “There's still a lot of nuts and bolts that’s got to be worked out with this, but I think it's great that the government has realised that we need as many people with as much gear as we can.”
He didn’t think it was fair for the cost to be borne by volunteers.
“If it's designated for firefighting, and comes under a certain umbrella of vehicles fit for purpose, then I think that the cost should be worn by the state government, if [FFV owners] are going to help RFS [Rural Fire Service] out,” Duff said.
“I'm just not sure that the burden needs to be placed on farmers, because otherwise they're just not going to do it.”
NSW RFS Commissioner Trent Curtin said farmers know their land better than anyone, and the reform will “continue the strong relationship between landholders and the RFS, leveraging all available resources and the expertise and dedication of farmers in safeguarding our communities”.
How to apply for a registration. Apply online or in person at Service NSW, or call 13 77 88.