Models already show a possible El Nino event occurring in July, and authorities are turning their attention to the increased fire risks.

NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Rob Rogers said he remained concerned about the coming fire season, with the state facing the worst grassfire threat in 20 years. While the agency was more concerned with areas that had not burnt in the 2019-2020 Black Summer, heavy regeneration across the state means the risk remains high everywhere.

“It made me realise that it’s not quite as safe in those areas as we had thought,” he said.

The RFS is also behind in its mitigation efforts following the wet weather. While the agency is doing what it can, Rogers said it’s unlikely they’ll be able to catch up. “We will try to catch up, but in reality, I don’t know how feasible that is.”

Hazard reduction burning is a delicate science: it requires looking at the type of vegetation you are burning, what flora and fauna live in the area and the weather conditions. That’s why fire agencies also rely on other mitigation efforts, including creating fire breaks, manually removing vegetation or using goats to chomp at the overgrown landscape.

Rogers believes that given the heavy grass growth in the state, there’s every chance Australia could see as many fires as burnt in the 2019 to 2020 fires - about 11,400 fires.

“There is a large expansive area in the west that had no fuel back then that now has significant fuel,” he said. “The only positive thing is that we shouldn’t be in the same level as drought [as back then]. We had just come out of a four-year drought and there were towns that were down to weeks’ worth of water.

“We are clearly not in that same position, but that doesn’t mean we still can’t have fires.”

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In Victoria, the grassfire threat remains normal, but this could change next week when AFAC provides its updated seasonal outlook. Maps by the state fire agency show the amount of grassland curing – a measure of the amount of dead grassland that has dried out or died – remains higher in the north.

NSW Mid North Coast farmer Josh Gilbert has faced four years of drought, fires, floods and now risks another of grass fires. “They’re the joys of climate change, you don’t know what you are going to get or when and how severe it will be,” he said.

“We’re already starting to see cracks in the ground so we’re having to make decisions now - what could another drought look like? We’re [selling] our stock and that is purely out of having gone through the drought and having to buy tens of thousands of dollars worth of feed. It’s unfeasible for us to keep doing that.”

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