Mayors from 12 councils in fire-stricken regions issued a statement urging the government to take climate change seriously and to increase funding to frontline services.

It comes one day after 23 former chiefs and deputy chiefs of fire services renewed their call for the Federal Government to take action to tackle climate change.

The statement, issued Friday by mayors from regions including the fire-stricken Bellingen, Mid-Coast and Noosa regions, said “the catastrophic conditions” for recent devastating fires “were, at least in part, fuelled by climate change”.

The mayors noted that Queensland experienced “catastrophic” category fire conditions for the first time in 2018 and Sydney did so for the first time this week.