extract string from body of text
You can do the whole thing with a single regexp:

import re

data = """
&lt;p&gt;Fire Danger Ratings
&lt;br /&gt;Bureau of Meteorology 
forecast issued at: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 05:30 AM&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Central: LOW-MODERATE&lt;/p&gt;         
"""

rgx = re.compile("(forecast issued at: |&lt;p&gt;Central: )(.*?)&lt;/p&gt;")
results = rgx.findall(data)
print results[0][1]
print results[1][1]


Output:

$ python rss_parse.py
Mon, 4 Nov 2013 05:30 AM
LOW-MODERATE


If this only runs a time or two a day, pre-compiling the regex is not important. 

...
results = re.findall("(forecast issued at: |&lt;p&gt;Central: )(.*?)&lt;/p&gt;", data)
print results[0][1]
print results[1][1]


We can simplify how the result is handled:

...
[when, rating] = [x[1] for x in
                  re.findall("(forecast issued at: |&lt;p&gt;Central: )(.*?)&lt;/p&gt;",
                             data)]
print("%s\n%s" % (when, rating))