Jason Ross
Wildfire has consumed more than three times as much south-west Western Australian public native forest every year since 1995 as it did across the three preceding decades, while prescribed burning across those same forests has halved. That is according to John Cameron, a Traralgon forestry consultant whose 60-year meta-analysis with three former government scientists in Australian Forestry revealed that the state carries the heaviest fuel loads and the longest fire season of the three regions studied, and still loses the least forest.
Prescribed fire covered a mean 9.2 per cent of the south-west forest region every year between 1965 and 2024, compared with 1.9 per cent in Victoria and 0.7 per cent in New South Wales. At the same time, wildfire took the smallest share of the three regions in the west and the largest in New South Wales. Six decades of unplanned fire burnt 60 per cent of the west’s forest area, 112 per cent of Victoria’s, and 141 per cent of the estate in New South Wales.
Click here to read the full article
