Unseasonal winter heat across Australia is increasing bushfire risks

Australia faces high bushfire risks months ahead of the summer fire season as an unusually warm winter scorches parts of the continent and threatens to set temperature records.

The heat is expected to bake large areas of the country in the coming days, according to Angus Hines, a meteorologist at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Temperatures could be between 2C and 8C above average from Townsville to Melbourne on the east coast, he said.

The fire season usually peaks in the summer months from December to February in the more densely populated eastern and southern regions of Australia. Temperatures in more remote areas could be as much as 15 C above the seasonal average on Friday, Hines said.

“We are not yet into fire season for most of Australia, but with this combination of hot, dry and sometimes windy weather, we will see widespread moderate to high fire danger,” Hines said. “We do not anticipate a widespread colder period affecting Australia until late next week.”

Heat records were set in Europe and Asia during the Northern Hemisphere summer, and fires burned parts of Greece and Canada as climate change results in warmer, wetter weather. The world recorded its hottest day in July.

Photo: An aerial photo of the Ardea Resources Goongarrie mine site outside Kalgoorlie, Australia, Wednesday, August 7, 2024. Photo credit: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg

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