Bush fireys fail to meet burn target

WA’s bushfire fighting agency will fall more than a quarter short of its controlled burning target for the South West despite a big increase on the past two years.

The Department of Parks and Wildlife said yesterday that it had burnt 142,303ha of bush and forest between Lancelin and Albany so far this financial year, but the target was 200,000ha.

The result was a big turn-around on the previous year, when it burned 78,234ha, and a massive improvement compared with 2012-13, when the department managed just 23,468ha in the aftermath of the Margaret River inferno.

Despite this, the department will fail to meet its key prescribed burning target for the 16th time in 18 years, with the season due to end within days.

At a Budget estimates hearing yesterday, DPaW fire services manager Peter Dans said although the department would not meet the benchmark this year, it would be the best result since 2009-10.

And he declared the agency would “have the means to achieve” it from next year subject to favourable weather conditions after receiving a 50 per cent funding boost for prescribed burning over the next four years.

As part of the expanded burning program, the department would create a specialist team of five or six firefighters to focus on “small, complex” burns near built-up areas.

“I’m quite confident that when the new funds start to flow from July 1, with the right systems and processes in place we’re going to top the 200,000ha (target) — absolutely we’re aiming for it,” Mr Dans said.

He also revealed the cost to the department from February’s Northcliffe blaze had topped $14 million, which among other things was used to reimburse Eastern States-based firefighters who flew over to help.