Need to know: New fire danger ratings scheme to roll out

A new national fire danger rating system is being rolled out. See what it means.

The fire danger rating forecast for Black Saturday was catastrophic, with 400 fires hitting the state and 173 lives lost.

A new four-colour coded fire danger rating system is being rolled out nationally on September 1, after almost four years of consultation.

All Australians are urged to view the poster and brochure on the new ratings system to ensure they understand exactly what each of the four colours means and how to respond.

The new fire danger rating system comes into effect nationally from September 1.

Existing roadside signs, which have six fire-danger ratings, will be replaced with a simplified system across the nation.

The impetus for the change came from a 2018 survey of 5430 Australians that showed the vast majority failed to understand how the nation’s complex fire-danger rating system worked, with 93 per cent believing it predicted the probability of a fire starting.

In fact all fire-danger ratings systems measure how dangerous a fire would become if started on that day, using a combination of weather forecasting and information about vegetation that could fuel a fire.

Australia's current and confusing fire danger rating system that will be replaced.

Underlying the new ratings is a new fire behaviour index, to support operational firefighters and incident management, which is expressed in whole numbers from zero to 100-plus – details can be found HERE.

NO RATING when the index sits at zero to 11

MODERATE = 12 to 23

HIGH = 24 to 49

EXTREME = 50 to 99

CATASTROPHIC = 100+

The development and rollout of the new rating system is being co-ordinated by NSW Rural Fire Service and National Council for Fire and Emergency Services, with support from the

Bureau of Meteorology.