Climate-driven fire regime transformation in Queensland: a 24-year multi-seasonal assessment using satellite remote sensing (2001–2024)

Abstract Fire regimes are intensifying globally under climate change, yet comprehensive multi-seasonal assessments integrating fire activity with environmental drivers remain scarce for tropical and subtropical landscapes. This study quantifies climate-driven fire susceptibility trends across Queensland, Australia (2001–2024), a region spanning monsoonal tropical rainforests (>2500 mm yr −1 ) to semi-arid grasslands ( 0.50), while southern coastal regions remained low-risk (WCI < 0.25). Three distinct temporal phases emerged: extensive burning (early 2000s), suppression (2013–2020), and recent resurgence (2023–2024) driven by fuel-climate feedbacks from the 2020 to 2022 La Niña. Seasonally, winter displayed maximum fire susceptibility values (mean WCI = 0.402), establishing critical pre-fire season conditions that preceded peak spring fire activity. Model validation demonstrated good predictive performance for autumn (AUC = 0.763) and acceptable discrimination for winter-spring seasons (AUC = 0.63–0.69). Comparative analysis revealed that the trend-based WCI model exhibited superior temporal stability and long-term predictive capability, while the component-based SFI model demonstrated greater sensitivity to seasonal extremes and interannual climate variability. These findings provide critical empirical evidence for adaptive, bioregion-specific fire management strategies that integrate Indigenous fire knowledge, seasonal climate forecasts, and emerging remote sensing technologies to enhance landscape resilience under accelerating climate change.