14/01/2026
This is an outstanding article about forest fires with reference to Australia but recent similar articles around the LA Fires ring of a consistency of failure to manage fuel loads.
The article makes real sense.
National Landcare Network Karen Jansen - EcoForce Global Affiliate
Climate change and “explosive” bushfires – where is the evidence?
I’ve spent some time working through a recent Climate Council/Emergency Leaders for Climate Action report that claims climate change is driving catastrophic and so-called “explosive” bushfires. It’s an argument we’ve heard many times before. It’s also one that does not stand up to proper scrutiny.
The central problem is the report does not demonstrate causation. It assumes it. Here is the link to the report - https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/when-cities-burn-could-the-los-angeles-fires-happen-here/
What it actually does is correlate major fires with hot, dry or severe fire weather, then attribute those conditions to climate change. That is not proof of cause and effect. At no point does the report attempt to isolate variables, test competing explanations, or apply the scientific method in a way that would allow climate change to be identified as the primary driver of extreme fire behaviour.
Most concerning is that the report does not analyse fuel loads.
Fuel is not a peripheral issue in fire behaviour. It is the energy source that powers a bushfire. In fire science, fire intensity is defined as the rate at which energy is released along the fire front, and that energy comes from fuel being consumed. Increase the amount of fuel available, or allow fuels to become more continuous and vertically connected, and fire behaviour escalates rapidly. Fine fuels such as leaves, bark, twigs and grasses ignite easily and drive spread. Heavier fuels sustain the fire and dramatically increase heat output. Ladder fuels carry fire into the canopy, enabling crown fires and, in extreme cases, pyroconvective behaviour.
This is not theory or ideology. It is the foundation of Australian fire science. From Alan McArthur’s early work on fire danger and fuel condition at the Commonwealth Forestry and Timber Bureau, through to decades of CSIRO research and major field programs such as Project Vesta in Western Australia, fuel load and fuel structure have always been treated as primary drivers of fire intensity and suppression difficulty.
Prescribed burning is used to reduce fuel, reduce potential fire intensity, lower flame heights, slow rates of spread and give firefighters a chance to control a bushfire. Any report that claims to explain catastrophic or “explosive” fire behaviour while failing to measure or analyse fuel loads is ignoring established fire science principles.
This omission is important because when you look at Australia’s worst fires, the same pattern keeps reappearing.
The 2003 Canberra fires burned out of forests carrying heavy, continuous fuel after years of inadequate reduction burning. The follow up McLeod Inquiry was blunt about that failure. The 2015 Wye River fire ran through long-unburnt country where fuel loads had accumulated for decades. The 2003 and 2020 fires in Kosciuszko National Park, the 2018 Tathra fire and the 2019 Mallacoota fire all occurred in landscapes where fuel had built up under shrinking hazard reduction programs. Weather influenced these events, but fuel determined their ferocity. I have written detailed blogs about all those fires and their causes. See -
https://www.robertonfray.com/2023/01/06/a-case-study-in-folly-2-the-2003-canberra-firestorm/
https://www.robertonfray.com/2026/01/02/a-case-study-in-folly-7-an-avoidable-inferno-the-2015-wye-river-fire/
https://www.robertonfray.com/2025/11/07/kosciuszkos-managed-decline-how-politics-and-bad-science-burned-the-high-country/
https://www.robertonfray.com/2025/03/07/a-case-study-in-folly-4-the-price-of-ignoring-fire-risks/
https://www.robertonfray.com/2025/12/05/a-case-study-in-folly-6-the-day-the-sun-never-rose-at-mallacoota/
Across Australia, prescribed burning has been steadily reduced, in some states to a fraction of what was once routine. The reasons are political and bureaucratic, with poor policies and a lack of will, but the outcome is physical and unavoidable. Fuel accumulates whether we like it or not. When fire arrives, intensity is dictated by what we have allowed to grow.
Yet reports like this largely ignore that reality. They begin with an assumed cause — climate change — and build the narrative around it, while sidelining variables that may have far greater explanatory power. That is not how science is meant to work.
What makes this especially troubling is who is making these claims. The Climate Council and Emergency Leaders for Climate Action are not neutral scientific institutions. They are well-funded, highly visible, and influential in shaping public policy and public perception. When groups like this publish reports that present correlation as causation, omit critical variables such as fuel loads, and wrap those omissions in the language of scientific certainty, they are getting science wrong and actively distorting risk.
The consequences are serious. By framing catastrophic bushfires as an inevitable product of climate change, these reports allow responsible managers and politicians to abrogate responsibility for fuel management and sound bushfire preparedness.
The focus on climate change doesn't adequately highlight the risks posed by fuel loads, fuel strata and firebrands. A great visual example is the picture for New South Wales I attach to this post, kindly provided by a follower.
During the 2019-20 summer, towards the end of yet another prolonged drought period, areas west of the Great Dividing Range were parched and very dry, primed for massive bushfires if you believe the Climate Council.
And yet, the screenshot of the government's fire location map shows that the majority of the fires that occurred during the 2019-20 firestorm were east of the Great Divide, where forests were allowed to build up fuel levels due to benign neglect. The drier western half of the state had virtually no bushfires.
Worse still, the preoccupation with climate change promotes a sense of fatalism — the idea that nothing practical can be done — which places thousands of people at risk every fire season. Fires are not acts of destiny. They are physical events governed by known principles, and many of those principles involve decisions humans make long before the fire starts.
If organisations producing this material are supported directly or indirectly by taxpayer funding, that support should be withheld until they can demonstrate a far more robust, transparent and scientifically defensible approach.
Public money should not be used to promote incomplete analyses that downplay fuel management, misrepresent fire science, and send dangerously misleading messages to communities living in fire-prone landscapes.
People’s lives, homes, towns and firefighters depend on getting this right. When advocacy is presented as science, it becomes not only intellectually dishonest but, in the context of bushfires, actively reckless.
Until fuel loads, land management decisions and the dramatic reduction in hazard reduction burning are adequately accounted for, claims that climate change is the primary driver of catastrophic bushfires remain assertions, not proof. Correlation is not causation, no matter how confidently it is repeated in the report.
If we genuinely want safer outcomes, we need less narrative and more honesty about fuel, about fire management, and about the consequences of the choices made for the people
