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The response of fire to climate change may vary across fuel types characteristic of differing vegetation types (i.e. litter vs. grass). Models of fire under climatic change capture these differing potential responses to varying degrees. Across south‐eastern Australia, an elevation in the severity of weather conditions conducive to fire has been measured in recent decades. We examined trends in area burned (1975–2009) to determine if a corresponding increase in fire had occurred across the diverse range of ecosystems found in this part of the continent. We predicted that an increase in fire, due to climatic warming and drying, was more likely to have occurred in moist, temperate forests near the coast than in arid and semiarid woodlands of the interior, due to inherent contrasts in the respective dominant fuel types (woody litter vs. herbaceous fuels). Significant warming (i.e. increased temperature and number of hot days …