This is fantastic - when a fire can be a blessing! Prickly pear can grow huge too. I'm sure with all the hard work you'll be grateful you did it in a few years time! I can almost feel the sweat from here.
I was reading about how they planted all this marram grass on sand dunes to stop erosion - it was a non native and did stop the dunes falling apart, but totally destroyed the native species and wierdly the surf! Because it's so good at what it does, when there's a storm surge and the waves hit the dunes, you're left with these huge banks. And because the sand isn't washing in and out as usual the sea changes underneath and so do the waves. So it can really piss surfers off - and though they've eradicated in some areas to revert back to natives, in others it's been almost impossible. They had this idea of using marram to 'revert' the dunes back to 'original' states but that was kinda bullshit as they locked in a landscape that is usually shifting.
Anyway, interesting.
....The road to hell is paved with good intentions....