Surely have seen enough costly Royal Commissions to know that they are useless exercises in governmental attempts to appear to be doing something. Pure cynicism.

Mark, re- "However, it somewhat over-emphasises the limited effectiveness of fuel reduction in moderating the behavior of bushfires burning under extreme conditions". The RC got it completely wrong. Half a century of real data from WA shows that the main effects of mild burning are apparent in severe fire seasons, because if half the landscape has been treated in the previous 6 years, you don't get megafires driven by firestorms and embershowers. Have a look at the pic on Howitt Society front page where crownfire on right hand side of track dropped to ground fire on left hand side where recently treated.
The RC swallowed the rubbish manufactured by modelers at Wollongong and Melbourne Unis and ignored the wisdom and experience of land and fire managers. Management is a State responsibility. But the current regime of mismanagement and disaster was set up by COAG in 2004.

Nothing new here, just a tiger with its fangs extracted in advance?

Fuel load reduction by burning has a very limited season and burns more than fuel, such as the spiders and other friendly bugs and birds that make their homes/nest there.

Consequently, there's an increase in insect predation given the way we keep burning much more than vegetation with each of these, primitive culture, burns, some of which get away. And given climate change, may even take out half or more of a major city? With reservoirs nearly bone dry, high winds and enduring heatwave?

Fuel load reduction can also be done with whipper snippers and grazing animals (goats). Both of which are not limited by the vagaries of the climate, wind speed or temperature.

Creek crossings can be protected with strategically placed dams, concrete pipes/causeways. These infrastructure projects could create millions of hike in and hike out, short term jobs and work for the dole schemes? And materials that cannot be sourced locally, trucked or choppered in.

Lastly, if folk are going to build in the bush they need to completely clear an area around the house and surround it with a colourbond fence. Inside the cleared area ought to be mown grass and popup sprinklers! The roof also needs a sprinkler system.

And if there is only rainwater, ought also include a 2 million litre tank, And a roof large enough to ensure it fills with seasonal rain.
Alan B.

Alan B: Aborigines burnt 24/365 through droughts and flooding rains. They didn't need whippersnippers or old goats to help them maintain a healthy and safe landscape thru 40,000+ years of climate change

The next Bush fire season is only months away. Are our 'experts" working on solutions or will they become next years hindsight experts AGAIN ?
Let peoplw ho know deal with it !

Aborigines did not burn in the interest of climate or ecology. Some nong started the myth that they did, and other nongs keep it going. The yarn has as little authenticity as the one about the 'smoking ceremony' and the 'welcome to country' yabber, both invented a few years ago by entrepreneurs who wouldn't be seen dead stomping around in a cloud of smoke.

ttbn: aboriginal burning, like any rational and sustainable human activity was socioeconomic. They occupied a wilderness about 65,000 years ago and they burnt to live. They established a new balance of nature dependent on mild burning. Whitefellas, except for some pastoralists, stuffed it up until foresters realised the mistake in the mid-20th century. Then greenies with wilderness between the ears came along and stuffed it up again. They are the nongs. frequent mild burning maintains a healthy, safe and resilient landscape, but it is illegal because of green bs. it ain't about black vs white. some blackfellas, graziers and foresters know how to fix the problem, but they don't get a hearing. fairdinkum science agrees with traditional aboriginal knowledge, as explained by Vic Jurskis in Firestick Ecology

Mr Little is stuck in an, always was always will be, time warp. The Aboriginals did not have whipper snippers and goats! But they do now!

Of the deaths in that bush fire that had a smoke plume around the globe, 444 of them were just smoke inhalation?

This world is a very different place from pre-colonial Australia! And history and management tells us there is always a better way than what Granddaddy allus did!

Traditional land management by Exclusively Aboriginal Rangers may be a way for a few urban folks to lay claim to vast swathes of territory. Many of who would fail a DNA test?

I believe the vast majority of Australians have little or no interest in turning back the clock and allowing the traditional practices, or 3% of us, to decide our best way forward?

I get that there were survival strategies before there were vast dams fire trucks, water bombers, colourbond fences, etc!

But that was then, this is now! Folks who dwell in the past have no future!

Yes, let's give credit where due, acknowledge the original custodians and their primitive survival strategies and adopt those that serve all of us going forward, as one nation, rather than a collection of, never ever able to agree on anything, tribes!

Let's prioritise a Treaty, a bill of real rights and reconciliation. then worry about what traditional primitive land management practice may serve the collective, rather than a few reminiscing for what once was, will never ever be again!

There is only one constant in the universe and that one constant is, constant change!
Alan B.

Alan B,
you should reread your own nonsense before you post further comments. Mild burning maintained healthy, safe and resilient landscapes for 40K years. Coupled with new technology such as aerial ignition, it worked in southwestern WA for the past 60 years. "Vast dams, fire trucks, water bombers, colourbond fences etc." don't work. The lessons of history are valuable, the opinions of old goats are not.

Dear Little,

Mate you are making it up as you go. The Aborigines didn't burn into the forests. Down here in the western districts of Victoria they certainly created the vast 'estates' through burning but the more hilly country they left alone and it was impenetrable when the settlers/invaders first arrived.

They certainly knew how to manage fire and the records show them saving white families on numerous occasions because of that knowledge. But to try and foist blame for the greenies for our forested areas going up is just inane.

SteeleRedux: I'm reporting facts. You're dreaming up crap to promote green ideology. Here's what the first white explorer of the Western Districts, Major Mitchell, wrote when he ascended Mt. Macedon on his way back to Sydney: "The trees on its side were of a much grander character than those in the forest, and consisted principally of black-butt and blue-gum eucalypti, measuring from six to eight feet in diameter. The rock was syenite, so weathered as to resemble sandstone. I ascended without having been obliged to alight from my horse, and I found that the summit was very spacious, being covered towards the south with tree ferns".

SteelRedux "The Aborigines didn't burn into the forests."

Mate with those 7 words you exposed your ignorance on forest management. Best to stop writing more about it so you don't embarrass yourself on this forum. Or alternatively follow Little's lead and read some of the early explorer's descriptions of the land they passed through. Maybe then you might start to understand what this debate is about.

Quote:"the RC was not designed to seriously act on the major issues that could more substantially reduce the bushfire threat, such as land management and fire-fighting practices. Ditto for climate change, which is a much longer-term influence, despite many commentators framing it as the primary or sole cause of bigger and hotter bushfires. Most who made public submissions to the RC were primarily concerned with these matters and would be disappointed that it made few recommendations to directly address them."

These issues would offend those who support the federal Liberal govt hence they were deliberately excluded in the terms, just as Sir Humphrey Appleby would advise