La Nina fuelled grass fires expected

The heavy rains and floods driven by La Nina could cause "widespread grass fires on a scale never-before experienced," a Climate Council and Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA) report found.

Three years of La Nina encouraged grass and plants to flourish creating a 'powder keg' for grass fires, The Powder Keg: Australia Primed to Burn report said.

"Excessive rainfall in recent years has caused prolific vegetation growth in Australia, which is now drying and turning into fire fuel as we experience hotter, drier conditions," former Commissioner of Fire and Rescue NSW and founder of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action Greg Mullins said.

"Firefighters fear that grass fires occurring in hot, dry and windy conditions worsened by climate change could unfold on a scale never before experienced, potentially overwhelming emergency services at times, and placing communities at great risk," Mr Mullins said.

The report recommends the government provide more funding to emergency services and land management agencies to cover more staff and to better respond to "escalating disasters".

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The Climate Council and ELCA also recommends local and state governments and emergency management agencies should have permanent strategies and arrangements to manage disaster relief, long-term.

"Governments at all levels need to urgently invest in measures that help communities withstand and cope with worsening climate impacts, and accelerate efforts to rapidly lower greenhouse gas emissions this decade to avoid catastrophic climate impacts," Mr Mullins said.

Communities should be supported with more funding for education and resilience projects and stronger efforts should be made to "move beyond fossil fuels" to avoid more dire catastrophes, the report said.