An Enhanced National Fire Danger Rating System for Australia – where to from here? — ASN Events

An Enhanced National Fire Danger Rating System for Australia – where to from here? (#39)

Joe Buffone 1
  1. Emergency Management Victoira, Melbourne, Vic, Australia

Chair: Joe Buffone PSM, Deputy Chief Officer, CFA and Chair, National Fire Danger Ratings System Working Group

Across Australia, emergency services utilise a Fire Danger Rating System which has been in place, largely unchanged, since the 1960s. The Fire Danger Rating System is an essential tool which guides day-to-day response to fire, the issuance of community safety warnings, and critical public safety policies and strategies.

The current Fire Danger Rating System considers only a limited number of factors to determine the Fire Danger Index (FDI), a core element of the current ‘System’. It does not, for example, consider new and improved weather inputs developed by the Bureau of Meteorology since the 1960s. Nor does it consider the potential impact of a fire – that is, the risk to human life, property, the economy or broader environment.

The Australia and New Zealand Emergency Management Council (ANZEMC) has endorsed the development of an enhanced NFDRS National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) as a national priority.

A new and contemporary Fire Danger Rating System will necessarily be more complex: it will draw upon a much broader range of data, produce a suite of fire danger indicators, and support practitioners in both strategic and immediate response scenarios to make more accurate, informed public safety decisions. The new System will be spatially and temporally aware, better enabling emergency services to understand and act upon fire risk at a local, rather than regional, level, vastly improving the accuracy and effectiveness of services.

This panel session will discuss recent and planned activity being undertaken to develop a new Fire Danger Ratings System for Australia.