Validation of National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) fire-climate outlooks have been updated for the period 1999 to March 2004. Sixteen one-month forecasts and fifteen three-month forecasts are validated here. Validations are classed in terms of the five standard fire danger classes, from low to extreme. Forecasts were digitised manually from the published outlook maps and were compared to observed fire danger classes estimated from monthly severity rating (MSR) statistics. Various measures of forecast accuracy were then calculated, by comparing the relative frequencies of forecast and observed danger classes.