The occurrence of major wildfires in countries such as Portugal, Italy and Spain (2017) and Sweden (2018) indicated that wildfires pose a risk across Europe. While Central Europe has not been at the center of such events, observed climate data and climate projections suggest a tendency toward more years with wet and warm winters and dry and hot summers as well as fuel accumulation, leading to more hazardous conditions. Although some existing studies analyzed the differences in wildfire occurrence in this territory based on terrain, soil or vegetation characteristics, the effects of climate change have not been properly appraised. To fill this knowledge gap, we used and tested an ensemble of nine fuel aridity metrics, including three dedicated fire danger rating indices, and evaluated their level of agreement with actual fire occurrence, their ability to explain the interannual variability in wildfire frequency, and their temporal trends. The analysis covered the entire territory of the Czech Republic at 500 m spatial resolution. Two periods were included based on observed (1956–2015) and projected (2020–2100) meteorological data using ensembles of five regional climate models (RCMs) and five global circulation models (GCMs) based on Euro-CORDEX and CMIP5 datasets. For the future, we considered Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5. Our results showed that since 1956, most of the Czech territory has exhibited an increasing frequency of fire weather days (i.e., days with highly conducive wildfire conditions) and an increasing area affected by weather conducive to wildfire occurrence, with the trends accelerating after 2000. The annual variation in the fuel aridity levels (derived solely from meteorological data) explained more than 2/3 of the reported wildfire variability during 1991–2015 over the Czech Republic. The future projections based on the RCM or GCM ensembles indicated a significant increase in fuel aridity and an increase in the area under fire-conducive conditions. Recommendations derived from such robust results are provided for stakeholders seeking to implement adaptation measures.

葡萄牙、意大利和西班牙（2017 年）和瑞典（2018 年）等国家发生的重大野火表明，野火对整个欧洲构成了风险。虽然中欧并未成为此类事件的中心，但观测到的气候数据和气候预测表明，冬季潮湿温暖、夏季干燥炎热以及燃料积累的趋势越来越多，导致更危险的条件。尽管已有研究根据地形、土壤或植被特征分析了该地区野火发生的差异，但尚未正确评估气候变化的影响。为了填补这一知识空白，我们使用并测试了九个燃料干燥度指标的集合，包括三个专门的火灾危险等级指数，并评估了它们与实际火灾发生的一致程度，他们能够解释野火频率的年际变化及其时间趋势。分析覆盖了捷克共和国全境，空间分辨率为 500 m。包括使用基于 Euro-CORDEX 和 CMIP5 数据集的五个区域气候模型 (RCM) 和五个全球环流模型 (GCM) 集合的观测 (1956-2015) 和预测 (2020-2100) 气象数据的两个时期。对于未来，我们考虑了代表性浓度途径 (RCP) 4.5。我们的研究结果表明，自 1956 年以来，捷克境内大部分地区的火灾天气日（即具有高度有利于野火条件的天数）出现频率增加，受有利于野火发生的天气影响的面积越来越大，2000 年后趋势加速。燃料干旱水平的年度变化（仅来自气象数据）解释了 1991-2015 年期间在捷克共和国报告的野火变化的 2/3 以上。基于 RCM 或 GCM 集合的未来预测表明燃料干旱显着增加，导火条件下面积增加。为寻求实施适应措施的利益相关者提供了从这些强有力的结果中得出的建议。