Fire Danger Weather Research Articles

Climate change strongly affects future fire weather danger in Indian forests

Changes in temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and relative humidity due to climate change are likely to alter future fire regimes. We quantified the impact of such changes on the fire weather of Indian forests using a fire weather index and high-resolution downscaled climate projections. While conventional wisdom contends that future temperature increases will increase fire weather indices, we find this to be true only in dry forests. In humid forests, the fire weather index will decrease despite the warming due to future increases in precipitation and/or relative humidity. Days with severe fire weather danger will increase by up to 60% in dry forests but will reduce by up to 40% in humid forests. The fire season will be longer by 3–61 days across the country and the pre-monsoon fire season will become more intense over 55% of forests. This study suggests for countries like India with fragmented forests and diverse ecoclimates, standards and mitigation strategies must be developed at regional instead of national level.

Investigation of Fire Weather Danger under a Changing Climate at High Resolution in Greece

Future fire weather conditions under climate change were investigated based on the Fire Weather Index (FWI), Initial Spread Index (ISI) and threshold-specific indicators in Greece. The indices were calculated from climate datasets derived from high-resolution validated simulations of 5 km. The dynamical downscaled simulations with the WRF model were driven by EC-Earth output for historical (1980–2004) and future periods, under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), RCP4.5 and 8.5. The analysis showed that the FWI is expected to increase substantially, particularly in the southern parts with extreme values found above 100. In addition, the number of days with an FWI above the 90th percentile is projected to increase considerably (above 30 days), under both scenarios. Over the eastern and northern mainland, the increase is estimated with more than 70 days under RCP4.5, in the near future (2025–2049). Moreover, central and north-eastern parts of the country will be affected with 30 or more extreme consecutive days of prolonged fire weather, under RCP4.5, in the near future and under RCP8.5 in the far future (2075–2099). Finally, the expected rate of fire spread is more spatially extended all over the country and particularly from southern to northern parts compared to the historical state.

The Performance of ECMWF Ensemble Prediction System for European Extreme Fires: Portugal/Monchique in 2018

At the beginning of August 2018, Portugal experienced a severe heat episode over a few days that consequently increased the probability of wildfire events. Due to the advection of an anomalous very hot and dry air mass, severe fire-prone meteorological conditions were forecasted mainly over southern Portugal, in the Monchique region. Together with the significant fuel amount accumulated since the last extreme wildfire in August 2003, all the unfavorable conditions were set to drive a severe fire over this region. The Monchique fire started on 3 August 2018, being very hard to suppress and lasting for seven days, with a burnt area of 27,000 ha. Regarding the need to have operational early warning tools, this work aims to evaluate the reliability of fire probabilistic products, up to 72 h ahead, together with the use of fire radiative power products, as support tools in fire monitoring and resource activities. To accomplish this goal, we used the fire probabilistic products of the Ensemble Prediction System, provided by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. Among available fire danger rating systems, the Fire Weather Index and the Fine Fuels Moisture Code of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System were selected to assess the meteorological fire danger. The assessment of the fire intensity was based on the Fire Radiative Energy released, considering the Fire Radiative Power, delivered in near real-time, by EUMETSAT Land Surface Analysis Satellite Applications Facility. The exceptional fire danger over southern Portugal that favors the ignition of the Monchique fire and its severity was essential driven by two important factors: (i) the anomalous fire weather danger, before and during the event; (ii) the accumulated fuel amount, since the last severe event occurred in 2003, over the region. Results show that the selected fire probabilistic products described the meteorological fire danger observed well, and the LSA-SAF products revealed the huge amount of fire energy emitted, in line with the difficulties faced by authorities to suppress the Monchique fire.

Fire regime and climate determine spatial variation in level of serotiny and population structure in a fire-killed conifer

Fire-killed serotinous trees are often dominant species in fire-prone regions with contrasting wet and dry seasons. We studied a serotinous fire-killed conifer (Callitris preissii, Cupressaceae) to identify the influence of fire regime and climate on geographic variation in level of serotiny, recruitment and population structure. We measured population size distributions, seedling recruitment and level of serotiny for sample stands across a climatic gradient from mesic coastal (including two islands) to semi-arid inland sites in SW Australia. Trees on islands were mostly non-serotinous and were only weakly serotinous on the adjacent mainland in the higher rainfall West coast region. In the semi-arid Goldfields and South inland, and the higher rainfall South coast region, trees were more strongly serotinous with up to six cohorts of closed cones retained on trees. Level of serotiny was stronger at the drier end of the climatic gradient where severe to extreme fire danger weather occurs most frequently, and where vegetation type (e.g., shrublands) supports frequent crown-type, stand-replacing fires. Recruitment was most abundant post-fire in all regions, but seedlings also established inter-fire where there was regular seed fall due to low level of serotiny or spontaneous release of seeds from old cones on trees with a high cone load. Population structures for mainland stands shifted from approximately reverse-J (indicating continuous recruitment) in mesic regions to mainly unimodal (establishment mostly after fire) in drier, inland regions, although some long-unburned inland stands showed occasional inter-fire recruitment, likely linked to high rainfall years. Unimodal population structures characterized islands, where previous studies have identified herbivory on seedlings by refugial populations of native macropods as a limiting factor on inter-fire establishment. Understanding landscape context, response to disturbance, biotic interactions and reproductive traits of dominant species is essential in conservation planning in a rapidly changing global environment.

Наслідки катастрофічних ландшафтних пожеж в Україні для лісових екосистем та населення

Recent studies show an increase in the number and frequency of catastrophic forest fires in the world since the end of the XX century. Such forest fires often will cause essential economic and environmental losses, human casualties. According to forecasts, in Ukraine due to climate change fire weather danger will steadily grow: temperatures rising, changing seasons duration, prolongation of the vegetative and fire season, increasing the frequency and intensity of heat waves and natural hydrometeorological phenomenon, change of local water patterns. Several catastrophic fires in the natural landscapes of Ukraine occurred in 2020 in different regions of the country. Wildfires in Zhytomyr, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Kyiv regions were the largest and most catastrophic in Ukrainian history, with human casualties, large economic losses, environmental and social negative consequences. The main parameters of such catastrophic fires weather conditions, long period without precipitation, high air temperature and wind gusts of 15-25 m/s. There are two main critical periods in Ukraine, in terms of frequency and risk of forest fires. The first, spring, from the melting snow to the regeneration of a new green cover. The second period lasts from the last month of summer into the autumn rainy season when agricultural vegetation dries up and people and farmers use fires for remnants of vegetation clearing in the fields. The catastrophic landscape fires of 2020 indicate the gaps of the current fire management system on natural and cultural landscapes in Ukraine to effectively respond to large fires. The current system needs enhancement in accordance with new conditions and challenges. The manuscript presented information about catastrophic fires that occurred in the natural landscapes of Ukraine in 2020 based on available official information, remote sensing data and data from the geoportal "Landscape Fires of Ukraine" (wildfires.org.ua). Also in the article, performed the analysis of the components of the current fire management system and the main shortcomings and key recommendations for its improvement are formulated.

Do climate teleconnections modulate wildfire-prone conditions over the Iberian Peninsula?

Climate teleconnections (CT) synchronize and influence weather features such as temperature, precipitation and, subsequently, drought and fuel moisture in many regions across the globe. CTs thus may be related to cycles in wildfire activity, and thereby help fire managers to anticipate fire-prone weather conditions as well as envisaging their future evolution. A wide number of CTs modulate weather in the Iberian Peninsula (IP), exerting different levels of influence at different spatial and seasonal scales on a wide range of weather factors. In this work, we investigated the link between the most relevant CT patterns in the IP and fire activity and danger, exploring different spatial and temporal scales of aggregation. We analyzed a period of 36 years (1980–2015) using historical records of fire events (>100 ha burned) and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI). Cross-correlation analysis was performed on monthly time series of CTs and fire data. Results pointed towards the North Atlantic Oscillation (in the western half of the IP) and Mediterranean Oscillation Index (along the Mediterranean coast) as the key CTs boosting burned area (BA) and fire weather danger in the IP. Both CTs relate to the relative position of the Azorean anticlone, fostering hazardous fire weather conditions during their positive phases, i.e. low rainfall and warm temperature leading to low fuel moisture content. The Scandinavian pattern index also played an important role in the western half of the Peninsula, linked to a decrease in rainfall during its negative phases. Nonetheless, the association between the CTs and BA (up to 0.5 Pearson’s R p < 0.05) was weaker than the observed between CTs and FWI (up to 0.75 Pearson’s R p < 0.05).

Methodology for the Study of Near-Future Changes of Fire Weather Patterns with Emphasis on Archaeological and Protected Touristic Areas in Greece

This work introduces a methodology for assessing near-future fire weather pattern changes based on the Canadian Fire Weather Index system components (Fire Weather Index (FWI), Initial Spread Index (ISI), Fire Severity Rating (FSR)), applied in touristic areas in Greece. Four series of daily raster-based datasets for the fire seasons (May–October), concerning a historic (2006 to 2015) and a future climatology period (2036–2045), were created for the areas under consideration, based on high-resolution climate modelling with the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP), PCR 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios. The climate model data were obtained from the European Coordinated Downscaling Experiment (EURO-CORDEX) climate database and consisted of atmospheric variables as required by the FWI system, at 12.5 km spatial resolution. The final datasets of the abovementioned variables used for the study were processed at 5 km spatial resolution for the domain of interest after applying regridding based on the nearest neighbour interpolating process. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) spatial operations, including spatial statistics and zonal analyses, were applied on the series of the derived daily raster maps in order to provide a number of output thematic layers. Moreover, historic FWI percentile values, which were estimated for Greece in the frame of a past research study of the Environmental Research Laboratory (EREL), were used as reference data for further evaluation of future fire weather changes. The straightforward methodology for the assessment of the evolution of spatial and temporal distribution of Fire weather Danger due to climate change presented herewith is an essential tool for enhancing the knowledge for the decision support process for forest fire prevention, planning and management policies in areas where the fire risk both in terms of fire hazard likelihood and expected impact is quite important due to human presence and cultural prestige, such as archaeological and tourist protected areas.

Smoke-related health impacts of an unprecedented 2019/2020 forest fire season in Victoria, Australia

Background Victoria is a state in south-eastern Australia with a population of 6.6 million people. The 21st of November 2019 was the start of an unprecedented forest fire season during which 1.5 million hectares were burnt in Victoria. The fires were preceded by record fire danger weather in Australia and smoke affected large populations for a longer duration and with higher concentrations than previous fire seasons. As this was a recent event, detailed analysis of the wide-ranging health impacts are ongoing. Methods EPA Victoria commenced monitoring fine particles on 25th November 2019. A total of 32 air monitors measuring PM2.5 were deployed across the state. Preliminary data on emergency department presentations from the Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset were provided by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services. Results Air pollution from the forest fires was worst in the eastern half of the State. The 24-hour air quality standard for PM2.5 (25 µg/m3) was exceeded for 50 days in the East Gippsland region. The maximum 24 hour average PM2.5 was 3,253 µg/m3 and was recorded in the town of Bright in the north east. The 1hr peak at Bright was 6,956 µg/m3. Initial descriptive analyses of Victorian emergency department data clearly demonstrate an increase in respiratory-related emergency department presentations during this period. For example, in January 2020 Victorian emergency departments reported over 1,500 additional respiratory-related presentations compared to the same period the previous year. More detailed analyses investigating the association between forest fire smoke exposure and health effects using hospital admissions, Ambulance Victoria call-outs and calls to Nurse-on-Call are in progress. Conclusions Preliminary analyses have revealed major increases in respiratory-related emergency department presentations during an unprecedented 2019/2020 forest fire season in Victoria, Australia. Results of further analysis will be presented at the conference.

Enhancing the fire weather index with atmospheric instability information

The Fire Weather Index (FWI) is widely used to assess the meteorological fire danger in several ecosystems worldwide. One shortcoming of the FWI is that only surface weather conditions are considered, despite the important role often played by atmospheric instability in the development of very large wildfires. In this work, we focus on the Iberian Peninsula for the period spanning 2004–2018. We show that atmospheric instability, assessed by the Continuous Haines Index (CHI), can be used to improve estimates of the probability of exceedance of energy released by fires. To achieve this, we consider a Generalized Pareto (GP) model and we show that by stepwisely introducing the FWI and then the CHI as covariates of the GP parameters, the model is improved at each stage. A comprehensive comparison of results using the GP with the FWI as a covariate and the GP with both the FWI and CHI as covariates allowed us to then define a correction to the FWI, dependent on the CHI, that we coined enhanced FWI (FWIe). Besides ensuring a better performance of this improved FWI version, it is important to stress that the proposed FWIe incorporates efficiently the effect of atmospheric instability into an estimation of fire weather danger and can be easily incorporated into existing systems.

Identifying Local-Scale Weather Forcing Conditions Favorable to Generating Iberia’s Largest Fires

The Mediterranean region is characterized by the frequent occurrence of summer wildfires, representing an environmental and socioeconomic burden. Some Mediterranean countries (or provinces) are particularly prone to large fires, namely Portugal, Galicia (Spain), Greece, and southern France. Additionally, the Mediterranean basin corresponds to a major hotspot of climate change, and anthropogenic warming is expected to increase the total burned area due to fires in Mediterranean Europe. Here, we propose to classify summer large fires for fifty-four provinces of the Iberian Peninsula according to their local-scale weather conditions and fire danger weather conditions. A composite analysis was used to investigate the impact of local and regional climate drivers at different timescales, and to identify distinct climatologies associated with the occurrence of large fires. Cluster analysis was also used to identify a limited set of fire weather types, each characterized by a combination of meteorological conditions. For each of the provinces, two significant fire weather types were identified—one dominated by high positive temperature anomalies and negative humidity anomalies, and the other by intense zonal wind anomalies with two distinct subtypes in the Iberian Peninsula., allowing for the identification of three distinct regions.

Acting on climate change and health in Victoria.

Acting on climate change and health in Victoria.

A fiery past: A comparison of glacial and contemporary fire regimes on the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain, Cape Floristic Region

Landscape-level fire governs vegetation structure and composition in the contemporary Cape Floristic Region (CFR) and was key to the existence of Middle Stone-Age hunter gatherers on the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain (PAP). However, virtually nothing is known about Pleistocene fire regimes of the CFR. We characterized the fire danger climate of the PAP during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 19–26 ka BP) based on palaeo-climate simulations and explored the severity and seasonality of fire danger weather along west-east and coastal-inland gradients across the PAP. We used knowledge of relationships between contemporary fire climate and contemporary CFR fire regimes to propose LGM fire regimes in relation to simulated LGM fire climate. We found that the severity of fire weather during the LGM across the PAP was significantly higher than present; mean fire danger index scores and the incidence of high fire danger days were greater, while the seasonality of fire weather was more pronounced, exhibiting summer-autumn fire regimes across the PAP. Although a more severe fire climate suggests potentially more frequent fires than present, slower fuel accumulation due to colder temperatures, reduced solar radiation and lower atmospheric CO2 may have partly countered this effect. Our proposed LGM fire regimes predict the vegetation of the PAP to have been dominated by fire tolerant, largely Mediterranean-climate formations such as fynbos, renosterveld and grassland, but is unlikely to have provided a driver for mass seasonal east-west migration of large grazers on the PAP.

Comparison of Methods for the Assessment of Fire Danger in the Czech Republic

The performance of fire indices based on weather variables was analyzed with a special focus on the Czech Republic. Three fire weather danger indices that are the basis of fire danger rating systems used in different parts of the world were assessed: the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI), Australian Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) and Finnish Forest Fire Index (FFI). The performance of the three fire danger indices was investigated at different scales and compared with actual fire events. First, the fire danger indices were analyzed for different land use types during the period 1956–2015. In addition, in the analysis, the three fire danger indices were compared with wildfire events during the period 2001–2015. The fire danger indices were also analyzed for the specific locality of the Bzenec area where a large forest fire event occurred in May 2012. The study also focused on the relationship between fire danger indices and forest fires during 2018 across the area of the Jihomoravský region. Comparison of the index values with real fires showed that the index values corresponded well with the occurrence of forest fires. The analysis of the year 2018 showed that the highest index values were reached on days with the greater fire occurrence. On days with 5 or 7 reported fires per day, the fire danger indices reached values between 3 and 4.

Просторово-часовий розподіл пожеж у природних ландшафтах Рівненської області

Аналіз історичної динаміки пожеж та встановлення їх просторово-часових особливостей є основою для розроблення плану управління пожежами та стратегічного розміщення протипожежних сил і засобів на місцевості, а також здійснення попереджувальних заходів. Використовуючи дані дистанційного зондування Землі, отримано основні показники горючості природних територій Рівненської області за період з 2001 по 2018 рр. та виконано їх аналіз. Щорічно на території області відбувається в середньому 190 випадків пожеж на загальній площі 12,6 тис. га. Усереднені дані свідчать про тенденцію до зростання показників горючості території, зокрема середньорічна площа пожеж за період з 2001 по 2018 рр. зросла від 7,4 до 17,8 тис. га. За результатами дослідження встановлено, що найбільше пожеж стається у березні-квітні (29,6 %), серпні (32,2 %) та вересні (19,9 %), що повинно бути основою для максимальної готовності протипожежних служб у ці періоди. Виконано аналіз погодно-кліматичних показників за багаторічний період та досліджено їх зв'язок з основними показникам горючості. Зроблено висновки щодо проблеми пожеж у природних ландшафтах Рівненської області. Наведено недоліки наявної системи моніторингу пожеж як важливої складової системи охорони природних територій від пожеж.

A 1980\u20132018 global fire danger re-analysis dataset for the Canadian Fire Weather Indices

This data descriptor documents a dataset containing over 38 years of global reanalysis of wildfire danger. It consists of seven fields to assess fuel moisture as well as fire behavior. The methodology employed to generate these data is based on the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Danger Rating and utilizes weather forcing from ERA-Interim, a global reanalysis dataset produced by the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts. Global fire danger reanalysis data are used to quantify the climatological expectation of fire danger at a certain time of the year and for any location on the globe. It can be regarded as a complementary product to the fire danger forecasts issued daily by the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) under the umbrella of the European Copernicus program.

The role of short-term weather conditions in temporal dynamics of fire regime features in mainland Spain

In this paper we investigate spatial-temporal associations of fire weather danger and fire regime features from 1979 to 2013. We analyze monthly time series of fire activity (number of fires and burned area) and fire weather danger rating indices (Fire Weather Index, Burning Index and Forest Fire Danger Index) at two spatial scales: (i) regionally, splitting the Spanish mainland into Northwest, Hinterland and Mediterranean regions; and (ii) locally, using the EMCWF grid. All analyses are based on decomposing time series to retrieve differential indicators of seasonal cycles, temporal evolution and anomalies. At regional scale we apply lagged cross-correlation analysis (4 lags or months before fire) to explore seasonal associations; and trend detection tests on the temporal evolution component. At the local scale, we calculate Pearson correlation coefficients between each individual index and the 18 possible fire-activity subsets according to fire size (all sizes, >1 ha and >100 ha) and source of ignition (natural, unintended and arson); this analysis is applied to both cycles, temporal and anomalies series.Results suggest that weather controls seasonal fire activity although it has limited influence on temporal evolution, i.e. trends. Stronger associations are detected in the number of fires in the Northwest and Hinterland regions compared to the Mediterranean, which has desynchronized from weather since 1994. Cross-correlation analysis revealed significant fire-weather associations in the Hinterland and Mediterranean, extending up to two months prior fire ignition. On the other hand, the association between temporal trends and weather is weaker, being negative along the Mediterranean and even significant in the case of burned area. The spatial disaggregation into grid cells reveals different spatial patterns across fire-activity subsets. Again, the connection at seasonal level is noticeable, especially in natural-caused fires. In turn, human-related wildfires are occasionally found independent from weather in some areas along the northern coast or the Ebro basin. In any case, this effect diminishes as the size of the fire increases. Our work suggests that for some regions of mainland Spain, these fire danger indices could provide useful information about upcoming fire activity up to two months ahead of time and this information could be used to better inform wildland fire prevention and suppression activities.

The threatened status of the hollow dependent arboreal marsupial, the Greater Glider ( Petauroides volans ), can be explained by impacts from wildfire and selective logging

Abstract Logging and fires represent the major disturbance regimes in Eucalyptus forests and these can have varying effects on populations of forest fauna depending on their intensity and/ or frequency. Knowledge of the effects of fires on arboreal marsupials is limited and to the best of our knowledge no previous research has considered the effect of fire frequency on populations of these species. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of fire frequency (canopy-consuming wildfires) and logging intensity on the Greater Glider, Petauroides volans, a species of hollow dependent gliding possum that has recently been listed as vulnerable to extinction under Australian biodiversity law. Surveys were completed across a selective logging intensity and fire frequency gradient in tall wet (WSF) and tall dry sclerophyll forests (DSF) in north-eastern New South Wales, Australia. Generally, P. volans was restricted to WSF, where even a single fire, 10 years prior, significantly reduced the density of P. volans in comparison to unburnt areas. Significant negative impacts from intensive logging were also detected. These effects may explain observed declines in the abundance of P. volans over much of its range as well as its scarcity in the more fire prone DSF. To counteract these effects, we recommend not implementing prescribed fire under high or greater fire weather danger conditions near high-density populations of this species, along with increased retention of hollow-bearing trees during timber harvesting and/ or wider riparian buffers in areas where high density populations of P. volans occur.

Characterizing a Poacher-Driven Fire Regime in Low-Nutrient Coastal Grasslands of Pondoland, South Africa

Understanding fire regimes in the coastal region of the Pondoland center of plant endemism, (Eastern Cape, South Africa) is of critical importance, especially in areas where anthropogenic ignitions influence the fire regime. We characterized the fire regime (2007 to 2016) of Mkambati Nature Reserve (9200 ha) in terms of fire season, seasonality of fire-prone weather conditions, fire return interval (FRI), and influence of poaching-related ignitions. Fires were concentrated in winter when monthly fire danger weather index was highest. The mean FRI at Mkambati was <3 years, but varied according to vegetation type, and whether censoring (for open-ended FRIs) was applied. Mean estimated FRIs were 2.6 yr to 3.1 yr in the majority of grassland types, 5.6 yr to 8.0 yr in forests, and 9.0 yr to 44.4 yr in Themeda triandra Forssk. grasslands. Poachers, with the intention of attracting ungulates, are an important source of ignitions at Mkambati. Accordingly, FRIs were shorter (1.99 yr to 2.08 yr) in areas within 3 km of likely poacher entry points than in areas farther away (2.56 yr to 2.88 yr). Although all fires recorded at Mkambati during the study period were of anthropogenic origin, mean FRI still fell within the natural range reported for interior grasslands in South Africa.

Spatio-temporal trends in fire weather in the French Alps

The Alpine area is particularly sensitive to climatic and environmental changes that might impact socio-ecosystems and modify the regime of natural hazards. Among them, wildfire is of major importance as it threatens both ecosystems and human lives and infrastructures. Wildfires result from complex interactions between available vegetation fuels, climate and weather, and humans who decide of the land use and are the main source of fire ignitions.The changes in fire weather during the past decades are rather unknown in the French Alps especially due to their complex topography. Moreover, local institutions and managers wonder if the ongoing climate changes might increase fire risk and affect the environmental quality and the different ecosystem services provided by the mountain forests.In this context, we used the national forest fires database together with daily meteorological observations from 1959 to 2015 to investigate the changes in wildfire danger in the French Alps. We analysed the spatial and temporal variations in terms of intensity, frequency, seasonality and window of opportunity of two fire weather indices: the fine fuel moisture code (FFMC) and the fire weather index (FWI) that measure the daily water content of vegetation and the potential intensity of fires, respectively.Our results showed a major contrast between Southern Alps with a high fire weather danger on average and a significant increase in the past decades, and Northern Alps with low to moderate danger on average that increased only at low elevations. This study contributes to the understanding of the consequences of ongoings climate changes on wildfires in the French Alps. It produced high resolution results that account for the topographic and climatic variability of the area. Finally, the maps of the different fire weather components have practical implications for fire management and modelling and for preventing indirect effects of fires on ecosystems and human assets.

Forest management options for adaptation to climate change: a case study of tall, wet eucalypt forests in Victoria’s Central Highlands region

ABSTRACTAustralia has a highly diverse and variable climate and its forests are well-adapted to climatic variation. However, human-induced changes in climate could exceed historical ranges of variability and have effects on forests well beyond the experience of forest managers. These conditions will require implementation of management practices appropriate to a changing climate but there has been little analysis of potential management options for Australian native forests. The paper analyses potential management options for the tall, wet eucalypt forests in Victoria’s Central Highlands. This region has already experienced a strong drying and warming trend and a high incidence of severe bushfires over the last 15 years. Future changes are likely to include rising CO2, increasing temperatures and an overall decrease and changing seasonal patterns in rainfall. This is likely to result in higher fire danger weather conditions, changes in phenology of flowering, seeding and germination and shifts in forest composition and productivity. A range of different management options were considered and analysed in terms of current practice, costs and implementation feasibility. Many management actions identified to support adaptation to climate change were assessed as currently being implemented as part of sustainable forest management arrangements. Options that are not generally currently implemented include developing gene management programs and off-site gene banks, ex-situ conservation and increasing cooperation in species management, increasing stand and regional species diversity, identification and deployment of more drought- or disturbance-tolerant species or genotypes, planning to reduce disease losses through monitoring and sanitation harvests, managing stand structure to reduce impacts on water availability and implementing silvicultural techniques to promote stand vigour, as practised elsewhere in Australia. The likelihood of more intense rainfall events will require changes to infrastructure, such as forest road design and construction specifications. Implementing adaptation will require new approaches to forest management, potentially involving significant human intervention, new ecological, environmental and social research, new modes of communication with the public, new policies and revised regulations and management prescriptions.