One area where there is no doubt there is an increase in fire frequency is in the 16-million hectare Great Western Woodlands in the south-west corner of Western Australia.
Forest ecologist Dr Alexander Watson, of the Wilderness Society, says recent studies by Australian National University researchers has shown about 4.5 million hectares of the area has been burned in the past 36 years.
But more than half of that area (2.5 million hectares) has been burned in the past seven years.