Dead dry sticks, are a consequence of not having them grazed to ground level when they were just emerging green shoots, by grazing animals and you all know it! Intensive cell grazing is not ever limited to a few weeks in June and July but every month of the year even every fourth leap year and you all know it! Only ideologically driven firebugs would argue now, today, that fire is superior as land management to intensive cell grazing!

After that, we need a different water management plan. A plan that absolutely saturates the landscape with a much as possible with stormwater that currently races out to sea. This was what happened before white settlement. Then we came along and drained the wetlands and clear-felled whole forests.

Indigenous populations have selectively cleared their native forests for millennia without harming flora and fauna or forests, Selectively cleared forests have forest trails that act as fire breaks and alow mobile traffic to get into areas normally too thick for anything other than foot traffic.

Truth is, trees store carbon whether horizontal or vertical! And younger more vigorous trees store much more of it than elderly old-growth forests.

Green idealogues created the conditions for this year's firestorm by making green dependant politicians too timid to stand up to a vote casting idiotic minority!

And our leader needed to spend three weeks on a hill than tree weeks on foreign sand! That one piece of salient information tells you just how much this P.M. cares about us and what happens to us! He can trot out all the excuses and mouthpieces as much as h likes, that won't change who he really is, nor any of his vociferous fellow travellers.
Alan B.

Alan B: You say, "And our leader needed to spend three weeks on a hill than tree weeks on foreign sand! That one piece of salient information tells you just how much this P.M. cares about us and what happens to us! He can trot out all the excuses and mouthpieces as much as h likes, that won't change who he really is, .."

Nope! If you ever bothered to read the constitution then you would know that it does NOT mention fighting bushfires as being a federal commonwealth responsibility. The ONLY powers that the commonwealth has are those that are specifically granted it in the constitution or those that the states have given/lent to it since the drafting of the constitution, however the states can at any time take back powers that the commonwealth are yielding on their behalf. Never has the states transferred the fighting of bush-fires to the federal government. I don't think it has ever even being suggested.

This is why the rural fire serivces have names such as: QFS = Queensland Rural Fire Service or the NSWRFS = New South Wales Rural Fire Service.

However, I will grant that the federal government is responsible for the land it owns/controls- which is some of the land currently burnt/burning and thus are responsible for its fuel loading. But never-the-less the federal executive, under the current arrangements in place, is certainly NOT meant to be controlling/managing the fire fighting effort. This is purely a state matter! Anyone who says that the federal government has been slaking off the job simply doesn't understand the foundational governing structures of the society that they live in.

(PS: by-the-way: The constitution has no concept of "leader". The PM is not our leader as you seem to think. If I remember correctly the constitution doesn't even mention the PM's role but rather it's a traditional position. The Queen or the Governor-General would have as much right be called the "leader" as the PM- in fact, the GG probably has more right since the GG is a constitutionally defined position.)

Don't worry thinkabit, we all know this is simply Alan, like a few others, trying to use the fire emergency to push his far left leanings.

As the greenies said, never waste a good emergency.

AlanB,

Which grazing animals do you suggest?
Having spent many a back-breaking day digging out gum seedlings in country where there were thousands of sheep and hundreds of goats I'm interested.

Then there is serrated tussock, a grass that burns intensely but which is eaten by nothing.

"Seedlings of this weed are difficult to pull out of the soil. Dense infestations of this weed can pose a serious fire hazard with a recorded burn intensity of up to seven times greater than native grasslands.

Seed heads create additional hazards where they build up against housing, sheds, roadsides and fence-lines, particularly in the rural and urban areas of outer west Melbourne.

Serrated tussock takes only seven years from establishment to dominate a pasture or native grassland, threatening rare native plant species and resulting in a loss of flora biodiversity. The plant is unpalatable and infestations commonly expand as other species are selectively grazed out. This excludes other ground flora and eventually reduces habitat for native fauna."
http://agriculture.vic.gov.au/agriculture/pests-diseases-and-weeds/weeds/a-z-of-weeds/serrated-tussock

Digging out ST is also a back-breaking exercise once it spreads a bit, vigilance saves a lot of work but once it gets among native tussock grasses it is really only identifiable by feel as the eye tires easily because looking for distinctions is hard where the native grass is similar.

"Nassella trichotoma, the serrated tussock, is a type of bunchgrass plant, native in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Peru. It is on the list of Weeds of National Significance in Australia, reducing the productivity of pasture and creating a fire hazard. Wikipedia"

Now there we are someone who seems to know more about it than any of us.
The been there done that brigade.
I am afraid that we are being inundated with the "Pile on Brigade".
They seem to have their sites on the PM at present.
I wonder what they want him to do that is not already been done.
The money is there, the army was there almost from the start, the navy
is there, helicopters galore, anything the RFS etc want it is there,
and still they complain ! Has anyone asked them what more do they want ?
Instant houses probably, it is all so b$%^&y stupid !

Bazz,
You're dealing with the stupid, nothing will make sense to them, just let them run their course which is unfortunately a long one.