INTERNET giant Google will launch a national disaster map of Australia this morning, pinpointing the country's raging bushfires, listing fire warnings, outlining burnt areas, and issuing alerts to users.

While the Google Australia Crisis Map was launched early for New South Wales last week, in response to the state's bushfires, the search giant will today reveal information in other states, including Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

Google crisis response project manager Nigel Snoad said the information on the map was taken from official state agencies, including the NSW and Queensland Rural Fire Services, and could be accessed via the web or on mobile devices at google.org/crisismap/australia.

The company is in talks with other state agencies to expand its coverage.

Mr Snoad said Google created its own national map to take load off the NSW website that was slammed with traffic and became unavailable intermittently last week.

"The NSW Rural Fire Service website is getting a lot of hits and it was promoted as the place to go for big disasters," Mr Snoad said. "We'd rather they spent their money on fighting the fires.

"Our goal is to add more information over time, like closed roads, so it becomes a rich resource."

The information will also be used to alert Google Maps users who search for areas under fire threat, and those using the Google Now app when they reach a threatened location.

Mr Snoad said while the Crisis Map currently focused on bushfires, it could be updated to identify Australian flood threats and cyclones in future as had been done in other countries including Taiwan and Canada.

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