Plain Language Summary In this review with supplemental data analyses, we focus on the global and regional impacts of climate change on the frequency and intensity of fire weather (conditions conducive to fire ignition and spread) and the consequences for fire activity. We find that significant increases in fire weather have occurred in most world regions during recent decades due to climate change. Corresponding increases in the area burned by fires have been seen in some regions, most notably in mesic forests, however, in many regions fire is controlled by a range of other bioclimatic and human factors whose influences mediate or override those of fire weather. Weather conditions affecting vegetation growth and the build-up of fuels, the presence of human ignitions in regions that are not naturally fire-prone, and the fragmentation of fire-prone landscapes by agriculture are key examples of factors that can locally or regionally outweigh fire weather as controls on fire activity. Climate models project that fire weather will become increasingly frequent and intense under future warming, and at an increasing rate with each additional increment of warming. The outcomes for fire activity in future will depend on other regionally important factors that control fire ignition and spread. Existing fire models represent the controls on fire incompletely and so they reproduce observed patterns of fire with only limited success. Models also disagree on historical trends, leading to low confidence in their simulations of future fire activity. Various efforts to improve the representation of fire in models are underway and should yield greater capacity to predict the future of fire activity.