Reading their synopsis from the BoM I would doubt if the people concerned had ever been near a major fire
It would be interesting to know if anyone has taken an air sample from in one of these fire storms ? as it is my opinion that they are talking of two separate fire actions
The bush fire basically comes after the fire front and just mops up what is strewn about
The main damage is IMHO caused by a rolling gas explosion. this sucks all the air out and basically causes a vacuum and into this vacuum the air rushes in to fill the hole so it is air movement rather than a wind of any sort
Ask any pilot about wind shear and holes on the air which can be very disconcerting as your plane just drops in the hole, these are air movements not winds so searching for winds is a waste of time
Now IMHO the reason I said that there are two actions is that the major problem is the GAS explosion that is at the front of the burning fire and at the front of the fire is a huge area which is in a vacuum.
Houses often just blow up due to the vacuum before the fire front actually gets there
So if I was fronting that big useless inquiry the first thing I would do would be to get some senior experienced CFA blokes to tell me what to do and forget the scientists, let then stay asleep in their offices
You need people who have heard the roar of the fire front and been scared stiff to give you actual information of whats happening
Don't also forget all that burns now is scruffy regrowth as all the big trees that originally were too high to burn have been cut up for wood chips
