The recent devastating bushfire season represents a turning point for land management, with a concerted effort needed to manage the bushfire risk with careful prescribed fires and other future planning, a senior academic says.

A period of lower bushfire risk is likely to persist for three to five years, University of Melbourne Faculty of Science school of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences Associate Professor Kevin Tolhurst says, and that provides a short breathing space to start managing fires more sustainably.

“We have a short window of opportunity to start managing fires in the landscape more sustainably. If we don’t, in a decade’s time we may see the Black Summer repeat itself,” he warns, adding that the current royal commission into natural disasters and Senate and state inquiries must lead to change.

He says fuel is unusually low because last season’s fires burnt through large tracts of landscape and it will take up to 10 years for them to redevelop. Plants will regrow in bushfire-damaged areas but the fuel load will be low for several years.

Also different this year are moist conditions, with a change in weather patterns bringing good rains to eastern Australia from late February to April after prolonged drought.