Prosper in a dynamic world
Search

Australia faces high fire danger this summer

Australia recorded its warmest spring on record, with also  severe rainfall deficiencies occurring across parts of the country, setting the stage for high fire risk this summer. 

The Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council (AFAC) released their summer bushfire outlook for 2024 on Thursday, November 28, showing large areas of the NT, Vic and parts of NSW, WA and SA have an increased risk of bushfires this summer. 

The red shading on the map below shows areas that have an increased risk of fires over the next three months. The remaining grey areas on the map have a near-normal risk of summer fires, according to the AFAC outlook. 

Image: Australian seasonal bushfire outlook for spring 2024. Source: AFAC 

The AFAC outlook shows elevated fire danger across five states and territories because of: 

  • Forecast above average temperatures 
  • The Bureau has forecast drier conditions in mid to late summer across much of Australia, apart from the east of the country which should continue to be wet.   
  • Severe rainfall deficiencies and drought across parts of southern Australia. 
  • Winter spring rainfall which has led to substantial fuel loads in some areas 
  • Unburnt areas across southern NT 

Severe or serious rainfall deficiencies have been observed in northwest, southwest and far southern WA, southern and southeast SA, western and northeast Vic, southern NSW and the northwest and coastal fringes of Tas in the 15 months leading up to November 2024.  

Image: Rainfall deficiencies during the 15-month period between August 1, 2023, and October 31, 2023. Source: BOM  

The severe drought in these areas has resulted in large amounts of dry or dead plant material which are very flammable. A lack of autumn and winter spring rainfall was also observed across northeast Vic, the Mornington Peninsula, southwest Gippsland and Greater Melbourne and parts of central NSW, increasing the fire risk in these areas during summer.  

Meanwhile normal fire risk is forecast for northern and eastern parts of Australia due to the imminent monsoon arrival in the north and above average rainfall forecast in the east. These areas should still remain vigilant during the summer months, if this wetter-than-average weather does not eventuate, the risk of fires will also be higher than normal. 

Working in often severe conditions in the high-risk fields of forestry and emergency, our consolidated weather services can ensure full situational awareness for you and your team.

DTN APAC serves the forestry and emergency sectors, delivering trusted weather data and severe weather alerting to maintain safety, protect your assets and underpin your planning.

Weatherzone’s trusted nowcasting and forecasting system, OpticastTM, is independently proven to outperform other industry models, allowing you to respond rapidly to changing conditions. Opticast can ingest data from your on-site weather observation equipment, ensuring your forecast is customised to your local microclimate. From nowcasting and 14 day forecasting to seasonal outlooks, you have powerful, hyper-local weather alerting and intelligence, giving you decisive confidence when it’s most needed.

With lightning a prominent cause of forest fires throughout Australia, Weatherzone’s Total Lightning Network offers real-time detection and unsurpassed accuracy of lightning strikes to <200m. Based on a vast sensor network, both intra-cloud and cloud-to-ground strikes are located, ensuring you are alerted when severe weather is building and threatening your teams, assets and infrastructure. When volatile conditions increase the ferocity of fire it’s imperative you have lead-time to enact safety plans, keeping your people out of harm’s way.

Your weather intelligence is accessible across all devices in your network via our Weatherguard App, and your customisable interface.

We are there for you when you need us the most – 24/7, 365 days a year. For more information please visit our website or email us at sales.apac@dtn.com.

Title image credit: iStock /Binikins 

Latest news

Satisfy your weather obsession with these news headlines from around the nation, and the world.

How is DTN APAC equipped to service the offshore wind farm industry?

Wind turbines are usually pictured on rolling hills far from cities and people, but what if they were on rolling swells off the coast of populated areas? Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) and WA renewable power network currently harnesses wind power from 115 wind farm facilities and a capacity of 15,617 MW, according to OpenNEM. […]

Quarter million lightning strike and heavy downpours smash southwest WA businesses

The southwestern tip of Western Australia is the latest corner of the country to see exceptionally heavy winter rainfall, with 24-hour totals topping 100mm at some locations, and over 250,000 lightning strikes causing costly shutdown procedures. Storms and heavy downpours pelted much of the South West Land Division on Wednesday as a cold front and […]

East Coast Low brings intense night of wind, rain and surf to NSW businesses

The East Coast Low lashed large parts of the NSW coastline in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning as damaging to destructive winds, intense rainfall and large waves disrupted industries from aviation to ports, and transport to power utilities. The stretch of NSW coastline from the Hunter region to the South Coast has been most […]

East Coast Low deepening near NSW coast disrupting aviation, transport and utility industries

Heavy rain, destructive winds and damaging surf will batter eastern NSW in the coming days following the explosive development of an East Coast Low leading to significant disruptions to transport, aviation and utilities. A coastal trough located off the southeast Queensland and northeast NSW coast rapidly intensified into a low pressure system overnight into Tuesday […]