Right now it’s the Adelaide Hills. In 2013 it was the Blue Mountains, in NSW. In 2009 it was the terrible Black Saturday fires in Victoria. While bushfires have always been a part of Australia, the behaviour of fires is changing on the back of increasing extreme weather incidents.

For our continent, extreme weather can mean a number of things depending on locality – unseasonable storm and tempest activity, extreme flooding, and extreme bushfire activity. Firefighters deal with all of these. But bushfire, in particular, is core business for us. It’s a business that’s getting harder and more dangerous.

Last October, the Climate Council released a report focused on the NSW bushfire threat. It found that over the last 30 years hot days have become hotter, heatwaves longer and more frequent, and consequently we have seen increasing drought conditions in the south east of the state.

The fire season has been starting earlier and lasting longer, extending into spring and autumn. This not only means longer periods in which conditions are ripe for bushfire, it also reduces the time in the off-season when firefighters can take preventative measures to minimise exposure in the coming season. All of these changes are expected to increase in the coming decades. Put simply, changes in weather behaviour are making bushfires bigger and more dangerous.

What does this mean for those of us on the front line?

Firefighting is a labour intensive exercise. At its most basic it involves dragging hose to a position where you can best attack the fire, or the backbreaking work of starving a fire of fuel through constructing firebreaks or through backburning.

These methods haven’t changed much in the past century. In much the same way as our predecessors did, we respond to calls for help, we ship a standpipe, roll hose, and get to work. These days we have breathing apparatus instead of a wet sponge to breath through, trucks instead of horse drawn fire pumps, and modern personal protective equipment rather than brass helmets and the old “lion tamer” uniform. At its essence firefighting is a manual job, performed by men and women in often dangerous situations.

There have been technological changes that have made aspects of our job easier and more efficient. Better fire pumps, foam additives to water that make a better extinguishing agent, improved personal protective equipment, and use of aerial resources to fight fire are all relatively recent improvements in the industry. None of these have led to revolutionary changes in the way we fight fire.

But the world is changing. Our fire prone continent is experiencing more frequent and more intense bushfire activity, so what do our frontline firefighters need to deal with this challenge?

We need three things.

First, a change in how fire services are structured and run, and a change in the how the work of the service is understood. In NSW, there is a wasteful duplication between Fire Rescue NSW (the professional service) and the Rural Fire Service (the volunteer agency). Similar situations exist in most states and territories. There is no good reason for this, apart from the politics of decades past. A single fire service, with a holistic approach to the challenge of bushfire in a changing world, is an absolute no brainer.

Second, we need more of us. Around Australia the numbers of professional firefighters is either decreasing or remaining static. The Climate Council estimates (conservatively, in my opinion) that there will need to be a doubling of the number of firefighters in Australia by 2030 to deal with increased fire behaviour. In 2015, the number of professional firefighters nationally is going backwards, not forwards.

Volunteer labour is an important part of the firefighting industry, but we cannot expect volunteers to fill this enormous gap. There is a long-term decline in volunteering numbers, but even if this is overcome it is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect volunteers to provide the level of protection we will require.

Finally, we need the federal government to start being a part of the solution to this problem, rather than denying it exists. This is the critical decade for international action on climate. The recent unexpected statements from both China and the US on the question of carbon emissions gives some hope that action may be taken, but if this does occur it will be in spite of our own government’s position.

Firefighting may not have changed that much over the past century, but our weather is changing and we need to change with it. Sensible reform of fire services, a modern understanding of their role, and increases in resources are needed to give us any hope of being able to deal with the challenges ahead.

It’s always preferable to prevent a fire from occurring rather than fight it. Prevention in the 21st century means more than smoke alarms and backburning. It means international action on climate change.

Jim Casey is the state secretary of the NSW Fire Brigade Employees’ Union.