Summer of fire burns Australia

Australia's summer of fire has left a nationwide trail of devastation unparalleled in recent memory.

From the most picturesque and forested country of north east Victoria, to dry plains, Australia has burned for what seems like three months without end.

A drought, the worst in a century, laid bare the country without any protection from a summer of record temperatures and high winds.

More than 1.7 million hectares of land has been burnt.

More than 600 homes have been destroyed, the majority of which were lost in the horrendous fire that hit Canberra on January 18.

Worst of all, seven people have died and hundreds have been injured.

No one is really sure of the economic cost, while at the environmental level the plight of several endangered species hangs in the balance and the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of people is at risk of contamination.

With months of possible blazes ahead for the nation's 300,000 volunteer fire fighters, questions are now being asked about this summer of fire.

Perhaps the most important question is whether authorities were prepared for this onslaught, and could we have done anything to stop it.

CSIRO scientist Justin Leonard, who is about to head up a research project for the new Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, said it was unlikely in the case of the Canberra disaster whether anything could have been done.

Mr Leonard, who is looking at ways of preventing the loss of houses in bushfires, has just returned from an intensive examination of the devastation in Canberra.

While much has been made of the proximity of pine forests to the worst hit suburb of Duffy, Mr Leonard said it was not direct flames that caused so much destruction.

"It wasn't the flames, it wasn't radiation heat, all of these homes went because of ember attack," he told AAP.

"There's been a lot of talk about the pines being so close to the homes, but you had a good separation between them and the homes, with roads and a setback, so you can't blame them."

Much of the focus has been on the management of national parks.

Territories Minister Wilson Tuckey laid the blame for the Canberra bushfire at the feet of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), and was quickly joined by many rural bushfire captains.

The NSW Farmers Association is considering legal action against the state government for what it claims is the mis-management of national parks.

The association claims its members manage around 74 per cent of the state, without causing Armageddon type fire events.

But NPWS director Brian Gilligan says just 10 per cent of the state's fires come out of national parks.

Indeed, just this week, homes were destroyed in south-western Sydney by a grass fire that had nothing to do with national parks or their management.