There are calls to ensure bushfire management in WA is not hijacked by environmentalists and academics who are taking advantage of social trends that treat these subjects in a way that makes us all feel very virtuous but ignores the reality of the potentially-dangerous aftermath.

Those concerns were magnified when a firefighting veteran wrote to Environment Minister Reece Whitby on Friday to take a public stance and intervene in what he says is a dangerous and inhumane campaign against bushfire management and protection by Curtin and Murdoch universities.

Tap PLAY 👇 to hear what effect the research has had on town communities susceptible to fires

Bushfire Front chairman and former general manager of the Department of Conservation and Land Management, Roger Underwood – a seasoned forester who has fought hundreds of bushfires – wants the State Government to denounce the recent research from Curtin and Murdoch on prescribed burns.

“The last six months or so, there’s been an explosion of output from these people … to alarm and upset the public, with a view to ensuring the burning program is undermined,” he told Liam Bartlett on 6PR Mornings.

“If we don’t have the prescribed burning program in South West forests, it puts the whole community and the forest itself at risk of high-intensity, summer bushfires, and everyone suffers when you get them.

“Why would anyone promote a change to government policy that increases the likelihood of people being burnt and forests being burnt and towns being burnt?”