At its 8 April 2016 meeting, the Australian and New Zealand Emergency Management Committee (ANZEMC) approved a staged approach that would maintain momentum and enable the latest thinking to be incorporated as the system was developed.

A national Program Board with jurisdictional and national representation was established in late 2016 to oversee the development of the new Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS).

The AFDRS was developed across three phases:

Phase One (Completed December 2015)

• The first phase of the AFDRS Program included the development of a feasibility study, five-year roadmap and initial program management plan for the delivery of a new Australian Fire Danger Rating System. This work was undertaken by the Cube Group for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC) and completed in December 2015.

Phase Two (Completed early 2019)

• The NSW Rural Fire Service and the Bureau of Meteorology developed a prototype of a new fire behaviour index. Testing it against real-world fires demonstrated improved fire danger forecasts, meaning that fire danger ratings and associated messages to communities in the new AFDRS could be more accurate.

• The SA Country Fire Service led extensive social research into community understanding of fire danger and the current fire danger rating system.

Phase Three (Completed September 2022)

• An enhanced fire behaviour index using findings from the Phase Two research prototype.

• Software and tools to collect and analyse data, and to provide agencies with interrogable fire danger information that will improve decision-making.

• A simplified fire danger rating framework, including a unified system of clear, concise and action-oriented messaging that can be easily understood and responded to by the community.

• Research prototypes for other indices that could potentially prove useful to further enhance decision-making.