Australia's bushfire threat is climbing as a strengthening El Niño combines with dry conditions and increased fuel loads across most of the country, raising the prospect of significant economic and property losses this spring. The Australian and New Zealand Council for Fire and Emergency Services says its latest seasonal outlook shows increased fire risk in areas across all jurisdictions except the ACT, with the danger rising in most states and territories over the coming months.
Climate Drivers Converge
The widespread impact is being driven by dry conditions in the country's east and increased fuel loads through parts of central and northern Australia. AFAC CEO Rob Webb said, "The variety of risk factors across different regions reinforces the need for communities to understand their local conditions and prepare early." He added, "While some areas are facing an elevated risk of fire this spring, bushfires can still occur in regions with a normal seasonal outlook."
Fears have been growing about Australia's spring and summer after the weather bureau declared an El Niño in June, which has the potential to become the strongest on record. El Niño is linked to reduced rainfall, particularly in eastern Australia, and increased temperatures, mainly across the country's south. It often helps load the dice for more extreme fire conditions, and past events have contributed to some of the country's hottest and driest years on record.
The last El Niño in 2023-24 brought the warmest winter-spring since records began in 1910, but how it may affect rainfall is less clear. Models suggest a positive Indian Ocean Dipole could emerge before spring, which could exacerbate the impacts of El Niño.
Regional Risk Assessment
The outlook says increased fuel loads have elevated the fire risk across most of the Northern Territory, despite forecasts suggesting the region could see above-average rainfall in spring. Rainfall is also expected to be higher than normal for most of Western Australia, but the fire risk is high in some areas because of above-average fuel loads and dry soil conditions.
Below-average rainfall has increased the bushfire risk across large parts of southern Victoria and eastern Tasmania, including Flinders Island. South-east Queensland, north-eastern New South Wales and north-west South Australia are also looking at an increased chance of fires. While rainfall was above average for parts of northern and central Australia last month, it was unusually dry across much of the country's west and sections of the east. Temperatures were also warmer than average across most of the country, and that trend is expected to continue throughout spring.
Forest Recovery Creates New Fuel
David Bowman, a professor of pyrogeography and fire science at the University of Tasmania, said vegetation growth had been "prolific" in forests recovering from bushfires in 2019-20 and it wouldn't take much for that to dry out. He said, "There's a lot of water in the landscape, and that's resulted in a lot of productivity, a lot of fuel," and, "If we were to go into a summer under this El Niño where we had what we call flash droughts, which is really strong heat waves, we can switch up landscapes into extraordinarily dangerous conditions."
Bowman also said, "In eastern Tasmania, there's been a very sustained drying trend; we have had water, but basically it won't take much to nudge landscapes back into a deep drought." He said, "Plants are very good at controlling their water use, but if you subject them to very strong heating, you can rapidly stress and dry out landscapes and make the landscapes available for high-intensity fires," and, "My instinct would be to caution against complacency about particularly forest fires."
International Parallels
Bowman said Australia's differences in climate and geography mean it isn't necessarily subject to the same fate as Europe, the United States and Canada, but the recent fires there reinforce that fire seasons are worsening. He said, "We are much more advanced in terms of our capacity, but it also is a very good reminder, particularly what's happening in the US and Canada, who are very advanced in managing fire, that they're seeing fire seasons and fire behaviours that are just simply extraordinary," and, "I have every reason to believe that we will see equally extraordinary fires. If it's not this summer, it's certainly going to be in the next [...]." He also said, "We're going to see some very intense fire activity."
Predicting what impact the climate pattern will have on Australia each year is notoriously difficult because it's just one factor that influences weather conditions. Other climate drivers, such as the Indian Ocean Dipole and Southern Annular Mode, also contribute, along with local sea surface temperatures and natural weather variability. El Niño develops when ocean temperatures in the central Pacific are unusually high. The strength of El Niño, or why some reports have referred to it as a "super El Niño" this year, merely describes its signal, which has been unusually high for this time of year.
Why This Matters:
The elevated bushfire risk carries substantial economic implications for property owners, insurers, and agricultural producers across multiple states. Individual preparedness and local community response capacity will be tested as fire authorities face stretched resources managing simultaneous threats across vast geographic areas. The combination of climate factors creates conditions that could impose significant costs on taxpayers through emergency response deployments and infrastructure protection. Property rights and individual responsibility take center stage as landowners must assess their own risk profiles and take proactive measures to protect assets. The warning from fire science experts underscores that government emergency services, however well-funded, can't be everywhere at once when conditions turn severe. Communities that invest in their own preparedness and resilience now will be better positioned to minimize losses when fire conditions inevitably worsen.