Prescribed burning is a delicate and frequently frustrating art, requiring identification of often narrow windows of suitable weather to conduct burns that achieve objectives while remaining within prescription and under control. To assist fire managers to identify burning opportunities, the NSW Rural Fire Service (NSWRFS) has developed the prescribed burn forecast tool (PBFT), in collaboration with NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.

The tool has a modular structure to allow for continuous improvement of model components while maintaining consistent outputs and interface:
1. 6x6 kilometre gridded weather forecast data from the Bureau of Meteorology's Australian Digital Forecast Database, and gridded rainfall observations
2. A process-based, fine fuel moisture model used to predict surface moisture content and fuel availability
3. A fire-behaviour model, based on McArthur's prescribed burning guide
4. A burn-suitability model that uses outputs from 1-3 to rate the suitability for burning of each grid cell at three-hour time steps for the four-day outlook.

The outputs of the PBFT are displayed in the NSWRFS Fire Weather Portal (FWP). The FWP allows users to view PBFT outputs as maps overlaid on scheduled burns and raster backgrounds at individual times or as an animation.

The PBFT was built using the best available science but nevertheless required judgements about definitions of suitable burning conditions. To better understand the performance of the tool in practice and validate the model components, CSIRO has compared predictions from the PBFT with observations from prescribed burns in conducted in NSW in 2013 and 2014. This presentation will demonstrate the operation of the PBFT and present the results of the validation study.