stick this in your righteous pipe and smoke it
http://www.news.com.au/national-news-2/wa-government-defends-prescribed-burning/story-e6frfkxi-12262...
.....IN the wake of the destructive Margaret River bushfire, the head of Western Australia's environment department has defended prescribed burning, saying worse tragedies would occur if it was not carried out.
Keiran McNamara, the director-general of the state's Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC), has also defended an officer involved in approving the burn which got out of control, after it was revealed he had been criticised by the WA coroner over three bushfire fatalities in 2007.
Hundreds of bushfire evacuees were waiting today to return to their homes in the Margaret River region after cooler weather enabled firefighters to contain the blaze that razed 30 houses.
Authorities hoped to have roads open and most evacuees back to their homes by tonight.
The fire spread out of control on Wednesday from a prescribed burn started by DEC in the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park on September 6 and reignited last Monday.
Mr McNamara told reporters today that he expressed his apologies and sympathies to the Margaret River community and particularly those families who had lost homes.
He said prescribed burning was inherently dangerous but it would continue to be an essential part of protecting the community from bushfires.
"In the absence of prescribed burning, unfortunately we will see worse tragedies than what we've experienced this week."
Mr McNamara said unseasonal wet weather meant the burn could not be completed in the time expected and it had to be relit a number of times.
"Once a burn has been initiated, it is necessary to complete that burn to make it safe."
There was every chance the fire might have spread without any reignitions, he said.
Mr McNamara rejected claims that the WA government had put pressure on DEC to ramp up prescribed burning in the wake of the Perth Hills bushfire in February that destroyed 71 homes.
"I reject the claim that we're taking too many risks. We assess every burn very carefully."
Premier Colin Barnett has said there will be an inquiry into the blaze.
But he added it was not a case of laying blame because it was an accident.
Mr McNamara confirmed that last year he had reinstated Brad Commins, now the district manager who oversees the Margaret River region, after he voluntarily stepped aside when WA Coroner Alastair Hope criticised him over three bushfire deaths in 2007.
Mr Hope found Mr Commins and two other DEC officers failed to consider key weather information when they approved the reopening of a road when a bushfire was burning in the Boorabbin National Park in WA's Goldfields region in December 2007.
"This constituted extreme incompetence," Mr Hope found.
Truck drivers Robert Taylor, Trevor Murley and Lewis Bedford died when they drove into the fire when the road through the national park was reopened.
Mr McNamara said on Saturday that an independent investigation had later found that Mr Commins was not careless in exercising his roles at Boorabbin.
"I have full confidence in Mr Commins as a competent and professional officer," he said.
Mr Commins was one of a number of senior staff who approved the Margaret River burn, Mr McNamara said.
DEC has confirmed that 30 houses, nine holiday chalets and four sheds were lost in the fire, while 16 houses and a shop were damaged.
A significant heritage loss was Wallcliffe House, an 1865 riverside manor being restored by Woodside Petroleum and National Australia Bank chairman Michael Chaney.
DEC issued a smoke alert on Saturday for southern parts of Perth after southerly winds pushed smoke north from the Margaret River fire...................
