About
What is The Bushfire Front?
The Bush Fire Front is a Western Australian voluntary organisation dedicated to protecting householders, farmers and forests from the ravages of bushfires. Our focus is the southwest corner of WA, where hundreds of thousands of people, valuable property, public assets and priceless forests are threatened by wildfire.
We are practical bushfire specialists, with hundreds of years’ accumulated experience in preventing bushfire damage to people, property and forests. We are a group of West Australians deeply concerned to prevent bushfire damage to people, lives and forests. Each of us has worked in bushfire prevention, bushfire science, fire planning, administration or operations for over 35 years.
We have one over-riding concern:
A catastrophic bushfire crisis is imminent in Western Australia unless decisive action is taken to avert it.By this we mean a Canberra-style disaster on the fringes of Perth or extensive damage to a major southwest town such as Bridgetown, Denmark or Margaret River. Alternatively, the disaster could be a major forest fire with large-scale loss of old growth karri forest, disastrous impacts on associated birds and animals, and pollution of water supplies.
Such a disaster is not just possible but highly probable.Our aim is to stimulate effective action to prevent bushfire disasters – to see that bushfire damage does not needlessly occur. We know that bushfire disasters can be prevented, and at much lower cost than the current approach to bushfire management.We are sounding this Fire Alarm because we do not want to have to give evidence to a Royal Commission or a Coronial Inquiry into loss of lives AFTER a bushfire disaster!
Although the primary focus of the Bush Fire Front is on forest fire on crown lands in the southwest of Western Australia, it is really a regional issue involving large areas of private land, both rural and urban. If city dwellers thought they were not concerned about bush fires, the 2003 Canberra disaster and the succession of urban fire problems around Sydney since 1994, have demonstrated that they are not immune from bush fire damage.
Our main concern is with the policies and activities of the State Government agency responsible for the management of crown lands in the southwest, now the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) and formerly the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM). However, other government agencies are involved, mainly on private land, such as FESA and the Shire Councils.