Letter to the Editor: Fire Forums convenor Dr Carole Peters on over-reliance on back-burning in mitigation

Greg Mair (Albany Advertiser Letters, 19/2) claims that a fire management policy in the Fitzgerald River National Park, based solely on rapid response, is doomed to failure.

Yet the recent devastating out-of-control wildfire does not engender confidence in current “mitigation” practices that focus predominantly on fighting fire with fire.

An increasing number of scientists are casting doubt on the practice of prescribed burning, arguing that the climate has become too hot and areas of risk too vast for safe and effective hazard reduction.

In addition, medical experts are warning of the serious health consequences for communities subject to pervasive smoke pollution, shown to be elevated due to the frequency of prescription burning.

Mr Mair’s opinion should not preclude improvements to rapid response capacity that are vital to enable ecosystem recovery in the FRNP over the next few decades.

It is encouraging that he agrees with Tony Pedro’s view (“Enough fire for the Fitzgerald”, Letters, 12/2) regarding “additional resources distributed around the State, in particular to high-value areas outside main population centres”.

However, Mr Mair then goes on to claim that Tony Pedro is “enamoured by water-bombing aircraft”, completely ignoring the full content of Mr Pedro’s statement.

At no point did Mr Pedro claim that aircraft alone can extinguish a bushfire.

To be precise, he called for “a new and highly effective rapid suppression base at Bremer Bay or Ravensthorpe, fully equipped with heavy plant, aerial support, fire trucks and staff”.

Avoiding delays in rapid attack is essential.

Heavy plant equipment must be on standby to allow fire trucks immediate access to a fire while it is small — close to the point of ignition — co-ordinated with the fast arrival of light aircraft waterbombers.

An overreliance on back-burning can dramatically increase the size of a wildfire.

As explained by Dr Philip Zylstra — a former remote area firefighter, now a fire behaviour scientist and adjunct associate professor at Curtin University, also a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, working with Distinguished Professor David Lindenmayer — back-burning can potentially worsen the spread of a bushfire and endanger firefighters by creating wind tunnels.

Back-burns often don’t behave as theorised and must be only a “last resort” tool.

“Back-burns can spot fire for tens of kilometres, even creating winds to amplify the energy of the main fire front”, Dr Zylstra reported in The Saturday Paper, February 14-20.

Professor Marta Yebra, director of the Bushfire Research Centre of Excellence at ANU, is among experts warning that back-burning “always needs to be a last resort, not a default tool”.

She says it can be a useful tool but should be used only when conditions leave very limited options.

Authorities should prioritise investment in early detection and suppression technologies: “Early detection is one of the biggest single opportunities to stop fires and prevent escalation.”

Back-burning via incendiary bombing over large areas should indeed be a last resort.

Successive commissions and inquiries have found that backburns were frequently responsible for spreading wildfires.

Dr Zylstra also explains the relevant flammability research:

“When we looked at south-west WA, we found that by ageing the forests into their low flammability, long-unburnt state, it’s possible to have less wildfire in 2100 than there is today, even under worst-case climate projections,” Dr Zylstra wrote in peer reviewed research by Zylstra, Bradshaw & Lindenmayer, 2022 & 2024.

In their most recent research, published in December 2025, Dr Zylstra and Professor Lindenmayer clarify the facts: “If large-scale prescribed burning and incentives to back-burn ended, the area burned annually in south-west WA would immediately fall by 87 per cent leaving only fire started by lightning accident or arson”.

As forest ecology expert Associate Professor Grant Wardell-Johnson emphasises, fuel reduction technologies are scientifically outdated and “must be redressed as a matter of urgency”.

It’s time for the WA Government, including their advisors the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions and Department of Fire and Emergency Services, to pay attention to the up-to-date peer reviewed research that shows that prescribed burning is not stopping wildfires.

It is in fact increasing the risk, due to the dense and highly flammable regrowth that follows frequent burning.

The dual practices of prescribed burning and back-burning on a huge scale are currently firmly entrenched bureaucratic practices that are in dire need of revision.

Outdated beliefs linked to ‘fighting fire with fire’ are prioritised over building the strategic regional locations and resources for efficient and effective rapid suppression.

The changes we need are about a lot more than fighting fire with fire.

An impartial and independent review of government department fire policies and practices is well overdue.

Letters to the editor must contain the author’s full name, address and daytime contact number. Letters may be edited for space, clarity or legal reasons. Email news@albanyadvertiser.com or post to PO Box 5168 Albany, WA, 6332.