Level guide
What does Fire Danger Rating: Extreme mean in Australia?
How the Australian Fire Danger Rating System describes this level, summarised in English, and what it asks you to do. Checked against the official page on 10 October 2026.
Fire Danger Rating: Extreme
Forecast fire conditions can support fast-spreading, extremely dangerous fires if one starts. This is not evidence of an active fire.
Act on your bushfire plan now; reconsider travel through bushfire-risk areas and leave early if not fully prepared. Follow local fire-agency instructions.
The warning itself names the hazard, the area and the times. Read them on the issuer's page, and follow local authorities.
This is a rating in the Australian Fire Danger Rating System. It is not a CAP severity, and it is not an emergency warning about a fire that is already burning.
CAP severity
No fixed mapping. A national colour or rating does not imply a CAP severity. Each warning carries the CAP value its issuer assigned, and this section copies that value per warning instead of inferring it from the colour.
Why scales are not interchangeable
A colour carries no meaning on its own. Each agency sets its levels against its own thresholds, for its own hazards, areas and durations, so the same colour in two countries is not the same level. Reading one country's colour as if it were another's can make a serious warning look mild.
That is why every warning in this section shows the label its own agency used, with any CAP severity beside it, and never merges the two. See the methodology, and the fire weather explainer for what the hazards themselves involve.
Source
Source: www.cfa.vic.gov.au · CFA-Your-Guide-to-Survival-…, checked 10 October 2026
The source is the authority. If it and this summary disagree, the source is right and this page is out of date.