My recollection of fire risk factors, from my days long ago as a fire lookout, suggests that
"a rise in average nightly minimum temperatures"
(due to global warming, for example)
would likely increase fire risk, by tilting the fuel slightly (and most risk factors, measured on a global basis, are very slight)toward lower moisture content.

If they were kept warmer at night, grasses & litter especially, both of which have high surface:volume ratios, would be drier and thus be better fuel and more easily set alight; by lightning, human carelessness or a spreading fire.

It seems some people make the mistake of thinking that factors which have large variability and/or high significance render insignificant such minor factors as a slight average shift in fuel dryness.

But particularly when non-linear feedback processes are involved, such as at the start and spread of a fire, what may seem like a comparatively small circumstance, risk or event can add up to the proverbial stroke of the butterfly's wing, which causes the turbulence that builds into a tropical storm - or Mr Cribbes' hyper-fire.

If some people here want to focus on "tree-huggers", I would say that they risk not seeing the forest, for the trees

Xoddam: Cribbes states “The causes of the hyper bush fires of recent years have nothing to do with climate change” followed by “Large infrequent fires have been caused by years of deliberate government decision making dating back to 1982 when the John Cain Government sacked the three Commissioners”. What nonsense re the recent ACT bushfire and say Tasmania again last season.

Given I was in Canberra during the 2003 event and went to Hobart in 67 while the ash was still hot to study the impact lets say all big fires depend on extreme conditions including soil dryness and high wind speeds.

Re moisture: Large trees die in droughts and shed their debris quickly. In Canberra I cut down large dead garden specimens every year now, the urban rangers luikewise. On the West Coast of Tasmania I watched bushfires doing a similar job in regrowth on drought stricken ranges.

Taswegians idea of mulching trash up on the Heemskirk Ra or Mt Reid seems far fetched from this distance. My bush bashing days round Zeehan are well and truly over.

Some time ago I asked bushfire researchers to look at our industrial experience. Fuels, drafts, combustion, energy and emissions were my bread and butter. Temperature and incineration in wildfire are mostly out of control. Nobody it seems has a good handle on how we stop fire crowning on a bad day. There is nothing fresh on the www.

Way back on privately owned blocks beyond APPM Burnie holdings we tried goats to reduce rampant blackberry infestation. Further north, the same big animals regularly roamed into crops on farms. ACT authorities were forced to spray some gullies in recovery post 2003. Large amounts of manpower are required in all cases.

Back to combustion,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire#Chemical_Reaction

Perseus, note how the forge requires an air blast for the higher temperatures

Already the debate is out of our hands, drought has played a part in no way as big a part as trying to change the nature of the Australian bush.
That sorry idea that we can better manage the bush than the million year old ways that made it what it is is wrong.
It has killed people who are not yet dead, this year some will die, more maybe than ever before.
Houses built within trees under trees are about to go forever.
And at some time in the future we will return to this debate knowing some things can not be changed.
Slow controlled burns are the best defense.

Belly,
re:
"That sorry idea that we can better manage the bush than the million year old ways that made it what it is is wrong."

what does the millions years refer to, exactly? There is scant, if any, evidence that Australia has been inhabited by humans for more than 70,000 years.

And Mr Cribbes, I still am wondering about your information on aboriginal land management in forested areas. Any links?

It seems that we might need a judicial review of global warming and fire.

Perhaps we could ask MR JUSTICE BURTON of the England and Wales High Court. He recently examined Al Gore's award winning documentary. His findings can be read at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/2288.html and include these gems:
"insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of 7 metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus"
and
"In scene 20, Mr Gore states "that's why the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand". There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened"
as well as even more damning errors.
This has forced the judge to order that all school children be told "AIT promotes partisan political views (that is to say, one sided views about political issues)" before watching the film.
Perhaps this could become a standard disclaimer in any promotion of the extreme perils and alarmist claims about climate change.

The problem with Cribbes' article is that he wrote from a Victorian point of view.
He was a member of the ALP's Conservation & Environment Policy Cttee 1986 to 1989 when Joan Kirner was Minister. At meetings various policies were proposed, usually by ALP members who were also members of the ACF or TWS or some such. In the early 1980's (Steel, the value of old age is having had the experience) the green NGO's were a dominant factor in Victorian environment policies. Thus, the 'lock it up and leave it' philosophy.
He was Treasurer of what is now Environment Victoria for two years and was submerged in green politics.
Few respondents to this article recognise that, while we argue over dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's, the authorities in Victoria are gearing up for another fire season by claiming that global warming is a really big factor that is beyond their control.
The only thing that is within our control is the fuel load and while we procrastinate and argue, native animal habitat is destroyed, not just damaged.
What does it feel like to be faced with fire and listen to the screams of trapped animals? How does it feel to have a two metre wall of mud and detrius assault your home? What does it feel like to have a flood rip right through your town?
Why not talk to my mate Ralph Barraclough at Licola on (03) 5148 8792 and ask him, He has had the lot.
Just help him have good land management reintroduced/started and cut the academic arguments and name calling.