Research presented to the commission by Dr John McAneney, from the insurance industry-funded Risk Frontiers project at Macquarie University, showed that 90 per cent of Kinglake properties destroyed by the Black Saturday fire were located within 80 metres of dense bushland. Thick bush was less than one metre away from 25 per cent of the homes destroyed in Kinglake and Marysville.

''There are an awful lot of people living, in my view, too close to the bush in a fire-prone country,'' Dr McAneney said.

The report was commissioned by the Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre and presented to the commission yesterday.

Whether residential developments should be permitted in areas of high bushfire risk will be one of the issues considered in the commission by an expert panel of researchers on February 22.

Dr McAneney agreed with counsel assisting the commission, Melinda Richards, that his report showed between 80 and 90 per cent of house losses occurred within 100 metres of bush.

In related evidence, it emerged that a 100-metre ''buffer zone'' was not accounted for in calculations assessing the bushfire risks of Marysville and parts of Kinglake before Black Saturday. The Country Fire Authority and the local council had undertaken a ''map'' of the Shire of Murrindindi using the Wildfire Management Overlay, but had not included requirements for a 100-metre ''buffer zone'' between dense forest and homes in the areas of Kinglake, Pine Ridge Road in Kinglake West and Marysville, the commission was told.

''A 100-metre buffer should have been put in place from Kinglake National Park and around the township of Marysville which would have taken in a large part of Marysville,'' CFA director of community safety Lisa Sturzenegger said. ''Today's practice note would have probably included all of Marysville.''