Most wildfire studies are regional to global in scale; however, many of the values of interest and the weather are local phenomenon that may give rise to large spatial variability in risk. We assessed the interaction of elevation and climate on fire weather for the Penticton Creek watershed in south-western Canada for historic weather, and five climate change scenarios. 100-year records of daily temperature and precipitation were generated using the LARS-WG5 weather generator, and used to calculate the Fire Weather Indices of the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System. Fire season length, restricted activity season and fire season severity are all projected to increase by the 2050s and in some scenarios to increase further by the 2080s. Low and mid-elevations had substantially worsening risks, whereas at the highest elevations risks were mitigated by the continuation of the snowpack. Increasing temperatures lengthened the fire season while decreasing (increasing) precipitation exacerbated (ameliorated) the intensity of the fire risk. These results indicated more variable climate change effects than in the literature. Over 24 million kmThe accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author
