But mistakes are still being made at planning levels that place properties on urban outskirts at risk in the event of a flare-up, an expert says.
"It's down to the layout of the street network to allow people to get in and out easily, to allow emergency vehicles to get in and out easily," University of NSW's School of Built Environment senior lecturer Benjamin Driver told AAP.
"At an even higher level, we need to be thinking at the metropolitan scale, and actually protecting our food bowl that acts as a natural buffer between the city and the bush."
Bushfires have already claimed several lives this summer and destroyed dozens of homes.
Australia is hot and dry and has always experienced fires, but human-driven climate change is making blazes more intense and frequent.
At the same time, the nation is experiencing an acute housing crisis and governments are actively trying to boost supply to ease shortages and improve affordability.
While the focus has been on "well-located" homes and densifying inner-city areas, new houses are still being built on urban fringes and encroaching on bush.
Mr Driver said the continual sprawl of Australia's big cities was eating into farmland that acted as a buffer between urban areas and the bush.
It was possible to stop city footprints expanding, he said, highlighting London as a good example.
"They don't have the bushfire risk, of course, but they have a green belt that they've maintained around metropolitan London for decades."
Mr Driver said vegetation management and landscape buffers could help defend cityscapes, but the wholesale destruction of bush near buildings was not the answer.
"People think that if you've got lots of bush, it'll burn," he said.
"But actually, more bush, more trees, keeps the ecosystem largely resilient, and, in fact, holds more moisture in the landscape."
In urban greening projects, risks can be minimised with the choice of trees, such as species less flammable than gums.
More green space cooled the local climate and added to the humidity in the air, the urban planning expert said, which could help prevent buildings catching alight on hot, windy days, when fiery embers can travel up to 50km from a fire front.
Subdivisions in bushfire zones had improved at connecting streets so residents could escape and first responders could get in, Mr Driver said, but "one road in, one road out" was still occurring.
"It should have been outlawed a long time ago," he said.
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