Published works

Fire danger ratings inform the community and fire managing agencies of fire risk. Fire danger ratings are currently primarily based on fire danger indices (FDIs) calculated using methods that were developed many decades ago. The challenges and issues with these methods are well documented. We aimed to develop a more objective and observation-based approach to fire danger assessment that considers spatial data on the occurrence of actual fires as well as on fire factors that are already routinely produced every day for Australia. A preliminary assessment suggested a very good potential of the methodology to formally and objectively incorporate any new fire danger predictors. The method can be combined with forecasted rather than observed weather and fuel conditions to produce forward predictions of expected FDI.