Fire Issues on Public and Private land
Fire management is not something that is confined to any particular land tenure, nor any part of the State. It crosses all tenures, over the whole of Western Australia, and needs to looked at in a holistic way. This means that there needs to be a cooperative approach between State Government agencies that are responsible for land, local government and private landowners. Occasionally, Commonwealth agencies may also be involved.
In WA, the main State Government agency that manages State forests, national parks, and terrestrial nature reserves and several other types of tenure, is currently the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC). However, several other agencies are also responsible for areas of rural land, albeit to a smaller extent than DEC. Others have infrastructure on rural land that can be affected by bushfires. These include Landcorp and Western Power.
For example, here is a powerline that is in danger of being destroyed by a bushfire
In this section we set out the history of fire management on public and private land in WA, and describe the current situation and problems on each tenure.