In many fire-prone habitats fires may be relatively frequent but of low severity or small areal extent. However, these same habitats may occasionally be subject to large, severe fires when extreme conditions and ignitions coincide. After [50 years without significant fire, a mega-fire burnt[50,000 ha of 'Eucalyptus-Callitris' forest in southeastern Australia. We assessed the impact of this fire on vegetation structure at a landscape scale by quantifying post-fire responses of 11 tree species over 97 sites with varying fire severity. At low severity over 60 % of 'Callitris' trees survived by escaping crown scorch, but they were almost all killed at higher severity. Fewer eucalypts escaped crown scorch (33 % at low fire severity) but there was no evidence of mortality due to the fire. Most eucalypts were topkilled (55 %) but less frequently at low (39 %) compared to moderate (55 %) or high (74 %) fire severity. Larger trees were less likely to suffer topkill. Taken together these results indicate that this wildfire has caused major changes to vegetation structure within the area burnt. Death of 'Callitris' trees reduced canopy tree density by 25 % and a high proportion of eucalypt topkill has resulted in a shorter, more open forest. Recovery of the tallest structural components through eucalypt regrowth and maturation of 'Callitris' may require fire-free intervals of several decades. Any fires within this period may extend the recovery time and lead to declines in populations of the obligate-seeding 'Callitris' species.

We used a mosaic of infrequently burnt temperate rainforest and adjacent, frequently burnt eucalypt forests in temperate eastern Australia to test whether: (1) there were differences in flammability of fresh and dried foliage amongst congeners from contrasting habitats, (2) habitat flammability was related to regeneration strategy, (3) litter fuels were more flammable in frequently burnt forests, (4) the severity of a recent fire influenced the flammability of litter (as this would suggest fire feedbacks), and (5) microclimate contributed to differences in fire hazard amongst habitats. Leaf-level comparisons were made among 11 congeneric pairs from rainforest and eucalypt forests. Leaflevel ignitability, combustibility and sustainability were not consistently higher for taxa from frequently burnt eucalypt forests, nor were they higher for species with fire-driven recruitment. The bulk density of litter-bed fuels strongly influenced flammability, but eucalypt forest litter was not less dense than rainforest litter. Ignitability, combustibility and flame sustainability of community surface fuels (litter) were compared using fuel arrays with standardized fuel mass and moisture content. Forests previously burned at high fire severity did not have consistently higher litter flammability than those burned at lower severity or long unburned. Thus, contrary to the Mutch hypothesis, there was no evidence of higher flammability of litter fuels or leaves from frequently burnt eucalypt forests compared with infrequently burnt rainforests. We suggest the manifest pyrogenicity of eucalypt forests is not due to natural selection for more flammable foliage, but better explained by differences in crown openness and associated microclimatic differences.