Wildfire can cause significant adverse impacts to society and the environment. Weather and climate play an important role in modulating wildfire activity. We explore the joint occurrence of global fire weather and meteorological drought using a compound events framework. We show that, for much of the globe, burned area increases when periods of heightened fire weather compound with dry antecedent conditions. Regions associated with wildfire disasters, such as southern Australia and the western USA, are prone to experiencing years of compound drought and fire weather. Such compound events have increased in frequency for much of the globe, driven primarily by increases in fire weather rather than changes in precipitation. El Ni\(\tilde{{{{\rm{n}}}}}\)o Southern Oscillation is associated with widespread, spatially compounding drought and fire weather. In the Northern Hemisphere, a La Ni\(\tilde{{{{\rm{n}}}}}\)a signature is evident, whereas El Ni\(\tilde{{{{\rm{n}}}}}\)o is associated with such events in the tropics and, to a lesser degree, the Southern Hemisphere. Other climate modes and regional patterns of atmospheric circulation are also important, depending on the region. We show that the lengths of the fire weather seasons in eastern Australia and western North America have increased substantially since 2000, raising the likelihood of overlapping fire weather events in these regions. These cross-hemispheric events may be linked to the occurrence of El Ni\(\tilde{{{{\rm{n}}}}}\)o, although the sea-surface temperature magnitudes are small. Instead, it is likely that anthropogenic climate change is the primary driver of these changes.

野火会对社会和环境造成重大不利影响。天气和气候在调节野火活动方面发挥着重要作用。我们使用复合事件框架探索全球火灾天气和气象干旱的共同发生。我们表明，对于全球大部分地区，当火灾天气加剧与先前的干燥条件相结合时，燃烧面积会增加。与野火灾害相关的地区，如澳大利亚南部和美国西部，容易经历多年的复合干旱和火灾天气。在全球大部分地区，此类复合事件的频率有所增加，主要是由于火灾天气的增加而不是降水的变化。厄尔尼\(\波浪号{{{{\rm{n}}}}}\)o 南方涛动与广泛的、空间复合的干旱和火灾天气有关。在北半球，一个 La Ni \(\tilde{{{{\rm{n}}}}}\)的签名很明显，而 El Ni \(\tilde{{{{\rm{n}}} }}\) o 与热带地区的此类事件有关，在较小程度上与南半球有关。其他气候模式和大气环流的区域模式也很重要，具体取决于区域。我们表明，自 2000 年以来，澳大利亚东部和北美西部的火灾天气季节长度大幅增加，增加了这些地区火灾天气事件重叠的可能性。这些跨半球事件可能与厄尔尼的发生有关\(\tilde{{{{\rm{n}}}}}\)o，尽管海面温度幅度很小。相反，人为气候变化很可能是这些变化的主要驱动力。