Black Summer, Black Saturday, Ash Wednesday: these and so many other bushfire disasters are regular reminders of the fact Australia is among the most flammable continents on Earth.
Alarmingly, climate change is making bushfires more frequent. This is a huge concern, given the devastating effects of fire on both human communities, and the diversity of plants and animals.
As our new research shows, however, the trend is not uniform. We examined the frequency of wildfires in parts of Victoria over the past 40 years. We found fire frequency is increasing in all ecosystems we studied, but to varying extents. In some places, fires are occurring so often, entire ecosystems are at risk of collapse.
