Some of the biggest and most damaging fires have occurred under extreme weather conditions. Fire danger indices have been developed to capture important surface weather phenomena, like rain, heat and wind. In reality there are many other weather and climate factors that influence fire behaviour and impacts. But fire danger indices are a good place to start.
This data is based on the Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI). Available from Bureau of Meteorology - FFDI.
To learn more about the methodology behind FFDI read: Dowdy, A. J. (2018): Climatological Variability of Fire Weather in Australia. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, doi:10.1175/JAMC-D-17-0167.1
This data shows us the average fire weather conditions across Victoria. Higher values represent greater fire risk from weather. The fire weather shown here is a function of temperature, rainfall, humidity and wind speed. Conditions are more extreme in the hotter, drier northwest of the state. Maps show the spatial pattern of fire weather. Graphs show the pattern of fire weather over time for different regions, including annual, monthly and seasonal time scales. Although fire weather records are available for earlier years, for maps we start in 2000 to allow comparison with other drivers and fire data. In the Graph section we go back to 1973 to allow comparison with long-term dryness records. We use a fire year rather than a calendar year e.g. the 2020 fire year runs from July 2019 to June 2020.
Hover over the map and graphs to get more info. Click on the range to see changes between years.