Correction to: Nature Geoscience https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0478-4, published online 28 October 2019.

In the version of this Matters Arising originally published, in the third from last sentence of the last paragraph, the word ‘not’ was mistakenly omitted; the sentence should have read: ‘Therefore, although we do not advocate prescribed burning everywhere, we merely suggest that it be considered as a tool in our armoury to mitigate wildfire impacts, and hence our research is timely.’ This has now been corrected.