A prominent fire ecologist believes the reintroduction of regular burns across the landscape are a necessity for the prevention of larger uncontrolled bushfires.
University of Melbourne Associate Professor of fire ecology and management, Kevin Tolhurst, said reintroducing "low intensity fire across the landscape" was necessary to thin the thick undergrowth in bushland.
Touring the High Country with Howitt Society members, Chris Commins and John Mulligan, Dr Tolhurst said "we have a misunderstanding that fire is a damaging process, it's not".
"The legislation of restricting fire has been counterproductive to a large extent," Dr Tolhurst said, explaining that "we probably have a little more control over fire in terms of where it starts and where it spreads to".
Using wind as an analogy, he said, "if we were able to control the wind and had the wind blow for two weeks of the year, we'd have enormous storm damage when it occurred, likewise with rain, if we controlled rain the same way as we control fire, we'd have flood damage and erosion devastating in terms of the impact."

IMAGE: University of Melbourne fire ecologist, Associate Professor Kevin Tolhurst, with Howitt Society members Chris Commins and John Mulligan at Tambo Crossing on Monday. Dr Tolhurst said reintroducing “low intensity fire across the landscape” was necessary to thin the thick undergrowth in bushland and that “legislation restricting fire has been counterproductive to a large extent”.