John Winston Howard emplored us to remember our history.
Lindenmayer et al is trying to take us back to the Lane-Poole era. He and very many other European trained foresters believed that keeping an unbroken forest canopy would make the undergrowth too wet for fire to take hold. We know, from his testimony to Judge Stretton, that he really believed this to be a fact.
Deciduous forests are unlike Australian dry schlerophyl forests in that there is insufficient precipitation to make the leaves, twigs and bark decompose. Forest refuse will remain for many years as a highly volatile inflammable fuel.
Removal is either in the cool season when fire can be controlled or in a summer feral fire.
If Lane-Poole was correct, there would be no need for Melbourne Water to maintain a highly trained and mobile fire fighting force.
It is most unfortunate that good forestry practices are on the way out. As the old time foresters pass on, there seem to be few who will keep a record of the old, successful times when all that was needed to extinguish a fire was a wet sack or a rake how and a knapsack sprayer.
Nothing compares with the hyperboly of the green adoring media.

A further dissapointment in the Lindenmayer article is that there is no recognition of the controlled forestry practices in Australia.
In Victoria, for sure, rainforest is protected from logging and very little takes place in Mountain Ash.
Reading the interpretation placed upon Lindenmayer et al by a sensation seeking press a distinct correlation can be seen between the reporting of minor temperature changes caused by CO2.
It is patently obvious that the green media hyperboly machine has been working overtime. I just wish I could determine their objective. All their smoke and mirrors do for our forests is eliminate native flora and fauna. Square kilometres of Victoria are now barren after the 2006/07 feral bushfires.

The real problem is that there is too much fuel in the understory.

The major cause of this problem is a lack of grazing animals &/or lack of controlled burning.

Thanks to loony, left, land use policies by both state & local governments from the red/green/getup/labour coalition.

Until recently kangaroos &/or wallabies were not something that you only saw, way out west or at "Australia Zoo", they were everywhere, including the forest's up & down the great dividing range, grazing on the understory.

In some parts of forest country they were replaced by domesticated grazing animals, but hobby farm lifestyle has killed that off too.

The loony, lefties strike again, they are responsible for those deaths in that horrible firestorm just over a year ago.