Australia is very different/unique. There are trees and plants in Australia that require fire for the seeds to sprout. Fires have been part of the ecosystem for so long over there that it has adapted. What you're describing sounds more like temperate rain forests of the west coast where pockets of wetness and some trees (like the Douglas Fir) make a fire less all consuming. But given that these forests have become drier and given things like pine beetle which is doing well because the winters aren't cold enough to control it the nature of the fires is changing. The fires are bigger, hotter, and destroy larger swaths of the forest.

AFAIK over the last few decades it is well understood that fires should be left to burn and generally this happens unless they threaten population areas. In theory this should mean that the next fire season has less fuel to burn but it's not working.

I'm not sure what the author is talking about is really current practices since I've heard the opposite so many times. What he describes seem to be mostly past practices.