This makes me wonder how in the heck these climate change models, which apparently are turning out to be fairly accurate, work. I mean, if they're accurate, they must be able to predict increases in fire events in certain areas, etc.

That's a classic example of 'we can't tell people the real truth because of blah blah reason'.
During the last fire season in Australia i noticed that the Fire Bureaus and Government Departments have access to animated typhoon like modelling that they don't release to the public for ... i don't even know what the reason is - fear of causing public panic - some message management thing.

But imagine if typhoon modelling was suddenly withdrawn due to fear of causing panic.