_Fires in Australia’s Forests 2016–21 (2024)_ is a continental spatial dataset of the extent and frequency of planned and unplanned fires occurring in forest in the five financial years between July 2016 and June 2021, assembled for _Australia's State of the Forests Report_ Indicator 3.1b Area of forest burnt by planned and unplanned fire. It was developed from multiple fire area datasets contributed by state and territory government agencies, after consultation with Australia’s Forest Fire Management Group. The fire dataset is then combined with forest cover information sourced from the _Forests of Australia (2023)_ dataset (https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/forestsaustralia/forest-data-maps-and-tools/spatial-data/forest-cover), and forest tenure information sourced from the _Tenure of Australia’s Forests (2023)_ dataset. Planned fire: Fire started in accordance with a fire management plan or planned burning program, such as fuel-reduction burning or prescribed burning. Unplanned fire: Fire started naturally (such as by lightning), accidentally, or deliberately (such as by arson), but not in accordance with planned fire management prescriptions. Also called bushfire or wildfire. The dataset was compiled by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) for the National Forest Inventory (NFI), a collaborative partnership between the Australian and state and territory governments. The role of the NFI is to collate, integrate and communicate information on Australia's forests. The NFI applies a national classification to state and territory data to allow seamless integration of these datasets. Multiple independent sources of external data are used to fill data gaps and improve the quality of the final dataset. Forest areas burnt by fire are allocated by the month of the fire to a financial year (July–June inclusive). Where more than one fire event occurs on any one hectare during a financial year, only the first fire is recorded for that area in the financial year. Fires are also classified into two categories, planned and unplanned, based on the fire seasonality and advice from state and territory agencies. The _Fires in Australia’s forests 2016–21 (2024)_ dataset is produced to fulfil requirements of Australia's _National Forest Policy Statement_ and the _Regional Forests Agreement Act 2002_ (Cwth), and is used by the Australian Government for domestic and international reporting.