Australian fire experts have been taking calls from France and Spain as Europe experiences catastrophic blazes beyond any previous experience, but as we head into our spring and summer, their expertise will be needed at home.

Australia faces its own challenges, with the Bureau of Meteorology in June declaring an El Nino event, expected to bring below-average rainfall in southern and eastern areas and above-average temperatures in most places.

“I am really worried about this spring and summer, especially in the southeast and south,” Steve Turton, adjunct professor of environmental geography at CQUniversity, told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

Professor Turton points to the prospect of a record-breaking El Nino that started early and is not expected to peak until December, combined with a likely positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), bringing less rain and higher temperatures than usual.

If a strong El Nino and positive IOD develop together, their drying influences could reinforce each other – and there is also the prospect of strong westerly winds in September and October, as occurred in the 2019-20 bushfire season, one of the worst on record.

Risk Frontiers chief climate scientist Stuart Browning told insuranceNEWS.com.au the El Nino in the central tropical Pacific is strengthening unusually quickly.

Last month, forecasts estimated a 91% chance of the event breaking the previous sea surface temperature record, and that brings uncertainty when no modern seasonal model has been tested against an El Nino of this projected magnitude.

We may see heat, rainfall and atmospheric circulation patterns in line with previous El Ninos, but the size of the event means it may play out differently.

“For Australia, this points to elevated risk, but with an unusual degree of uncertainty,” Dr Browning said. “The most damaging seasons can emerge when familiar climate drivers interact with less predictable influences.”

He says planning for summer should allow for several scenarios and be responsive to changes in conditions.

While European wildfires are grabbing the headlines, California is also confronting a rapidly escalating fire season, fuelled by extreme heat, drying vegetation, drought and strong winds.

The fires are not just a result of the hot summer, but are driven by a chain of interacting climatic, environmental and human factors, Professor Turton says, writing in The Conversation.

He told insuranceNEWS.com.au Californians have a history of suppressing fires in their forests to maintain water supply to cities, which has led to fuel accumulation, whereas Australia controls fuel loads through prescribed burning.

Fuel accumulation is a key issue in parts of California where fires have led to major insurance losses and deaths, he says.

“California demonstrates how quickly drought, heat, dry fuels, wind and human exposure can combine to produce a major emergency.”

Although Australia operates controlled burning, Professor Turton notes that due to climate change, the window for conducting safe burns is narrowing.

The Europeans lack some of the factors that fuel Australian fires, but they have planted eucalypts for timber, and they do have tree changers who want to live near forests.

While climate change is a common factor in Australia, California and Europe, Professor Turton says so is the expansion of the wildland-urban interface – the zone where suburbs and towns meet forests, grassland and shrubland.

As Australian authorities continue to warn of the need to prepare for a high-risk bushfire season, Europeans are counting the cost of their summer fires.

According to Gallagher Re, initial assessments indicate the July blazes could rank among the largest insured losses since Spain’s 2017 wildfires, which cost public and private insurers more than $US350 million ($500 million).

Gallagher Re says more land was burnt last year, but this year thousands more people have been forced to evacuate homes – an estimated 400,000 people across France, Portugal, Spain and Greece. “2026 will likely be remembered as the first wildfire season to trigger mass population displacement across Europe.”