Blaming the Greens for the country's bushfire crisis is "absurd", says Albury councillor Amanda Cohn.
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Cr Cohn, the only Greens member on Albury Council, said she felt obliged to write a letter of her own in response.
"The Greens do not oppose hazard reduction burning, and this is not a recent policy change," she said.
"After devastating fires in Tasmania in 2013 our senators were among those calling for - wait for it - increased resources for hazard reduction burns."
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The letters to The Border Mail came after Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce told Channel 7 there were too many "green caveats" getting in the way of hazard reduction burns.
This prompted NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons to respond, saying the weather was the main impediment to the burns and conditions meant the fires spread anyway.
"I understand that this crisis has devastated our region - we all have friends or family that have been directly impacted," Cr Cohn said.
I know that it's comforting to think that this is simply the fault of someone you already dislike.
- Councillor Amands Cohn
"I know that it's comforting to think that this is simply the fault of someone you already dislike, or that there is one simple solution.
"We need to have a holistic rethink of fire management in the context of a hotter, drier climate and we need to be able to do that together.
"Lies and disunity won't help us fight fires."
She was deployed as an SES volunteer to Glen Innes and Queanbeyan over the Christmas-new year period.
"It was gut-wrenching to watch the fires break out close to home from the Lake George fire control centre," she said.
"I am so grateful to have been able to come home to find my own home and family safe, but disheartened to then be absurdly blamed for this crisis."
