00:00On the banks of the Franklin River on the state's south coast, conservationists rally
00:10to raise the alarm about prescribed burning in the old forests.
00:15The first big major thing we want to do here is protect that forest.
00:18In the lead up to the state election, the WA Forest Alliance is ramping up pressure
00:23on the state government to stop using aircraft to set light to large bush blocks.
00:29Putting out whole forest blocks at a time is not a strategic way of doing it. We can
00:34put in strategic fire breaks, we can put in strategic prescribed burns in the right spots
00:39to protect towns and assets. We don't need to wipe out the forest to do that.
00:43We really just want the minister to wake up and realise that we don't want this prescribed
00:47burning the way it's being conducted. It's too destructive.
00:51The rally comes after the Los Angeles fire ignited debate in WA about the best way to
00:57protect lives and homes close to forests. Emergency authorities standing by the state
01:04government policy of the last 60 years.
01:08Undertaking prescribed burns, mitigation, fire breaks, all these sorts of things, they
01:13all are the preparedness pieces that put you in the best place that you can be leading
01:18into a bushfire season.
01:19We're very aware that there's small groups of people in the south west who just don't
01:23like fire. They don't like prescribed burning and they believe that the strategy that our
01:28government should adopt is one of suppression, which would just fail as has been proven tragically
01:34in Los Angeles.
01:35A local firefighter of 47 years, Dave Guthrie, believes there's a middle ground.
01:40I would like to see a return to smaller, cool burns or mosaic burning, which would require
01:48a lot more manpower. Moving away from aerial bombing.
01:55A debate set to heat up during the hot summer ahead.
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