A GREATER commitment to prescribed burning is needed to reduce the devastating effects of megafires, the Bushfire Royal Commission heard last week.

At the commission’s land and fuel management forum, several fire control experts told commissioners that strategic burns would significantly reduce the intensity of a bushfire.

Jerry Williams, a former national director of fire and aviation for the US Forest Service, said leaving a forest alone was a misguided conservation policy, because the fuel loads that would accumulate could cause monumental damage.

“A wide-held belief, at least in our country among a lot of people, is that the best way to save something is to keep it free of disturbance,” Mr Williams said.

“On the surface that may hold true, but in a highly dynamic ecosystem like a fire-dependent ecosystem that holds consequence.”

Mr Williams said the evidence was compelling that states with significant prescribed burning policies were far better protected from wildfires.

“We started to notice that large scale prescribed burning at meaningful scales… that were strategically placed and were re-treated at appropriate intervals… seemed to be resulting in significant benefit,” he said.

Mr Williams said the best time to conduct widespread burning was soon after a fire, when fuel loads were low.

Former fire researcher for the CSIRO Phil Cheney said prescribed burning could be effective in reducing the intensity of a fire for up to 20 years. He also said a good prescribed burn would leave an area fire free for up to two years.

Dr Kevin Tolhurst, a senior ecosystem science lecturer at the University of Melbourne, said prescribed burning “might not prevent (fires), but it certainly reduces their intensity and their rate of spread”.