FUEL reduction will be a key focus of the Royal Commission into Victoria's bushfires as debate rages over whether fire-ravaged communities could have been better prepared.
Vegetation management around homes and in rural and semi-rural communities, as well as local council regulations, have also flared as a major issue.
Several federal MPs and a number of fire-affected residents have blamed the Victorian Government for not conducting enough more extensive fuel reduction, especially in state forests and national parks.
"No fuel, no fire," West Australian Liberal MP Wilson Tuckey said, calling for forest undergrowth to be returned to levels maintained by early Aborigines. Mallee MP John Forrest said fuel reduction under forest canopies was "the one warning we didn't heed from the Ash Wednesday fires". "It's a matter of whether you put the welfare of trees or animals before human life".
The forestry industry also blamed "uninformed" green policies for Victoria's devastating bushfires, saying too much forest was locked up in reserves.
National Association of Forest Industries chief executive Allan Hansard said the strategy had proven "fatally wrong" and called for a national plan to actively manage forests.
"Bushfire management policy must be based on the best scientific knowledge, not the whims of uninformed green ideologists."
But Prof Peter Kanowski, a forestry bushfire expert at the Australian National University, said large-scale fuel reduction would not work in the damp eucalypt forests to Melbourne's north east.
It would only work was in very hot, dry weather which was "far too risky".
Prof Kanowski said tree-less buffer zones between forests and houses and tighter planning and design rules for buildings in high risk areas were more important issues.
Fire engineering expert Prof Ian Thomas - who saved his house at Glenburn near Kinglake in the fires - said fuel was a key issue, but dealing with it was a complicated matter.
Prof Thomas, who heads the Centre for Environmental Safety and Risk Engineering at Victoria University, said large-scale burn-offs could only be done during a couple of weeks a year.
Critical was getting residents to clear trees and thick vegetation from around their houses, but sometimes council regulations got in the way, he said. "One of my neighbours was told by the council to replant trees in the same position, effectively recreating a fire hazard."
Victorian Environment Minister Gavin Jennings said more than 150,000ha of planned burning was carried out in Victoria during 2007-08.
"This was significantly more than previous years and the largest program since 1993-94," he said.
Fuel reduction burning was carried out according to weather conditions to reduce fire threat, he said.
"Many issues and practices will be assessed by the Royal Commission and reduction burning will be one of them."
