Reconstructing seasonal fire danger in southeastern Australia using tree rings

Abstract

Climate projections indicate that dangerous fire weather will become more common over the coming century. We examine the potential of a network of temperature- and moisture-sensitive tree-ring sites in southeastern Australia to reconstruct the number of high fire-danger days for the January-March season. Using the Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI), we show that modestly statistically skilful reconstructions for the far southeast of Australia (western Tasmania), where the majority of tree-ring predictors are located, can be developed. According to the averaged reconstructions for the 1590-2008 period, there have been 16 years prior to the start of the FFDI records (1950), and 7 years since 1950..