In Australia, burned area increased significantly between the periods 1950-2002 and 2003-2020 in the southeast state of Victoria, with the area burned in the 2019-2020 bushfires being the highest on record . In addition to the deaths of dozens of people and the destruction of thousands of houses, the 2019-2020 bushfires burned almost half of the area protected for conservation in Victoria, two-thirds of the forests allocated for timber harvesting , wildlife and extensive areas of habitat for threatened plant and animal species . Generally, past timber harvesting did not lead to more severe fire canopy damage . Across southeastern Australia, the fraction of vegetated area that burned increased significantly in eight of the 32 bioregions from 1975 to 2009, but decreased significantly in three bioregions . Increases in four bioregions were correlated to increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation. Decreases in burned area occurred despite increased temperature and decreased precipitation. Analyses of climate across Australia from 1950 to 2017  and during periods with extensive fires in 2017 in eastern Australia , in 2018 in northeastern Australia , and in period 2019-2020 in southeastern Australia  indicate that temperature and drought extremes due to the ENSO, Southern Annular Mode and other natural inter-decadal cycles drive inter-annual variability of fire weather. While the effects of inter-decadal climate cycles on fire are superimposed on long-term climate change, the relative importance of anthropogenic climate change in explaining changes in burned area in Australia remains unquantified .
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report