It is due to start on October 1 - just four months away.

The Emergency Services Agency will keep an eye on weather conditions and may adjust that date accordingly. The season could come even sooner.

In the cool and relative distance of winter, last summer's bushfire season, described by Emergency Service Minister Mick Gentleman as the toughest since 2003, is being reviewed and picked over.

As are the decisions made around the firefight, most notably via the agency's own internal review, including 38 workshops with staff and volunteers.

A leaked copy of the review has unveiled concerns around the Emergency Service Agency's handling of the crisis, the behaviour of its high-profile commissioner Georgeina Whelan and the level of discontent within the paid ranks of the ACT Rural Fire Service.

No one can question the dedication last summer of the ACT's firefighters - both paid and unpaid - or the hierarchy of the ESA.

It was, by any stretch of the imagination, a torrid season. Tinder-dry conditions.

Thick, hazardous smoke that paralysed the national capital. The hottest day on record - January 4 when the mercury reached 44 degrees.

Twenty-four total fire ban days, when the average is six.

A 40-day fight against the Orroral Valley fire, with no loss of life or significant loss of property, within our borders at least, but in which 80 per cent of Namadgi National Park was burnt.

The speed of the fast-running grass fire in Beard. More than 350 public warnings and updates.

And, amongst all that, Canberra's worst hailstorm, on January 20.

Canberrans understand the sacrifice and commitment of the people who worked hard to keep us all safe during those frightening days of summer.

The average person might have had their coast holiday cancelled but they were not being asked to head out day after day in atrocious conditions to confront the beast.

Our firefighters did that. And we are forever grateful.

Canberrans also understand that the results of the review have to be looked at and a response formulated, which will be done by an independent consultant.

ESA Deputy Commissioner Ray Johnson is also conducting a review of the whole of government response to the 2019-20 bushfire season.

The agency says it "welcomes any opportunity to reflect and improve on its performance".

But it won't be commenting any further until "the review process is complete and the agency has had the opportunity to discuss the outcomes with its volunteers and staff".

That is understandable.

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But perhaps now is time for a little assurance, publicly, from Commissioner Whelan that she will listen to the discontent within her troops.

And some commitment that the issues raised so far will be resolved well before the start of the next fire season.

There is also an element of deja vu in the complaints - volunteer firefighters feeling disrespected, cross-border issues with NSW, concerns about community warnings.

The same things were raised after the 2003 bushfires. It would be depressing to think deep-seated issues have possibly still not been resolved 17 years on.

But there does too need to be an acknowledgement that the ESA seems to be damned if it does and damned if it doesn't.

Volunteer firefighters have criticised the ESA for overstating the bushfire situation last summer and causing more panic than there should have been.

The ESA in the wake of the 2003 bushfires was criticised for understating the risk and not wanting to panic the community because it felt it could defeat the fires. Is it better to be panicked into action or lulled into complacency?

We need to strike a safe balance. None of us want to become so inured to bushfire warnings that we start to discount them.

We also don't want to slip back into what then chief minister Jon Stanhope called a "culture of complacency" in the years leading up to 2003, when few gave a thought to the risk of bushfires to the national capital.

Similarly, the focus needs to get back to basics - aggressively attacking and putting out a bushfire as soon as possible.

That is the beginning and end of it. Petty in-fighting helps none of that.