An indication of the devastation of Saturday's mega fires in the South Gippsland area of Victoria, Australia. A Flickr group of public images. As Stephen Pyne pointed out in his seminal Burning Bush – A Fire History of Australia bush fires are part of our national culture and we have a vigorous fire politics.

It is a natural disaster probably made worse by climate change.

There are 20 major burn patients at The Alfred hospital and all of the bushfire victims at the hospital have burns to more than 30% of their body. Many have burns to their feet and hands inflicted as ran or crawled through fire to escape. Some also have burnt airways from smoke inhalation.

Standard fire control policy is now one of controlled burning. This is not supposed to replicate wildfire conditions. It is meant to create a ‘‘cool’’ burn, which removes leaf litter, elevated bark and the under-storey but doesn’t scorch the forest canopy. Ideally, it is possible to obtain a mosaic effect within a landscape, which leaves some patches unburnt. Fuel reduction burning is not a panacea. It is certainly not without risk in its own right since a controlled burn can escape containment lines and get away.

The debate about whether or not to fight fire with fire goes back more than a century, and is rooted in American and European forestry management that excluded fire from national parks and state forests. However, the options are stark: leave the bush unburnt and face an inferno, or burn it off and reduce the risk.