Victorians may face even worse fire conditions next summer, with a new study estimating there is a 76 per cent chance of an El Nino weather pattern in the Pacific.

An El Nino typically sees rainfall shift east away from Australia and is linked to dryness and active fire seasons in the country's south-east.

Bruce Laity on his farm 30kms from Kerang in northern Victoria. Credit:Simon O Dwyer

Melbourne University fire ecologist Kevin Tolhurst said a likely El Nino, as suggested by a German study published in US journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, would increase the bushfire risk.

''We're heading back into a dry period again,'' Professor Tolhurst said. ''In El Nino years, you have much larger and more destructive fires because there's much more of the landscape available to burn.''