West Australia's biggest bushfire centred on the town of Northcliffe and burnt through nearly 85,000 hectares and prompted questions about the role of prescribed burning in the state.<br />
Incident controller Greg Mair told a packed community meeting in the nearby town of Pemberton that Northcliffe "was not out of the woods yet" but Windy Harbour was "quite safe".<br />
He said favourable weather conditions and work done by firefighters had made a huge difference.<br />
Authorities had feared the fire would destroy Northcliffe, which had been declared indefensible, but managed to prevent it from doing so.