High fuel loads, hot weather and never-ending bushfire seasons are making the increasing number of people living on Canberra's urban edge "extremely vulnerable", the Climate Council has warned.
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More than 9000 Canberra homes are less than 700 metres from bushland, a new report by the Climate Council into bushfires has said.
And while the bushfire risk for the ACT has been rated as normal, higher fuel loads caused by a wet September and a dry October has firefighters on alert.
The Climate Council described the ACT as a "tinderbox" and said "hot and dry conditions are driving up the likelihood of dangerous fire weather in NSW and the ACT".
"The upcoming 2016/17 bushfire season in NSW and the ACT is set to be a potentially damaging one," the report said.
"September was the wettest and second wettest on record for NSW and the ACT, respectively. These wet conditions led to substantial grass growth.
"October rainfall was 15 per cent and 30 per cent less than average for NSW and Canberra, respectively.
"Dry conditions are set to continue into summer, with BoM predicting above average dry conditions and above average temperatures for the December–February period for the ACT and virtually all of NSW."
The bushfire season has stretched into October and March "posing serious resource issues", the report said.
"Since the mid-1990s, southeast Australia has experienced a 15 per decline in late autumn and early winter rainfall and a 25 per cent decline in average rainfall in April and May," it read.
United Firefighters' Union secretary Greg McConville said longer fire seasons were reducing opportunities for controlled burning and intensifying pressure on firefighting resources.
"In addition, climate change has serious implications for extreme weather events such as storms. These impact on the work done by urban firefighters in relation to swift water and road accident rescue, storm damage and localised flooding," Mr McConville said.
"While the SES play an important role in these areas, it often goes unnoticed that ACT Fire and Rescue triages storm damage and flooding incidents to ensure that hazards such as electrical hazards are addressed before SES crews can do their work. ACTF&R also do a great deal of the damage repair directly, but incident recording systems do not adequately reflect this.
"We have also tracked a correlation between years in which there are high numbers of floods and storms, and years in which there are higher than usual numbers of automated fire alarm attendances. This suggests that attendance at automated fire alarms will increase in future."
Mr McConville said while the rain increased the fuel load, it has not died out yet.
"Everyone is hoping that rain continues long enough for us to get through the summer," he said.
