Parks services conducted four burns off on Thursday to reduce fuel loads across Canberra.
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Seven burns had been originally planned over two days but strong winds forecast on Friday forced parks staff to cancel the three burns planned at the end of the week.
Ngunnawal elder Wally Bell, who kicked off the burns at Jarramlee Nature Reserve on Thursday, said the burn-offs were using cultural techniques that helped reduce fuel loads but weren't a completely traditional burn, what he called a "cool burn".
"[Cool burns are] removing the rubbish that's on the surface," Mr Bell said.
"That could be anything from leaf litter to weeds. That's just to keep the country clean because once you get rid of all that rubbish and stuff, you're promoting the regeneration of native species."
Mr Bell said Thursday's burns were still achieving that goal by destroying non-native species but were also about reducing fuel loads.
He said it was important a Ngunnawal elder like himself was there to give permission to non-Ngunnawal and non-Indigenous people to start the burn off.
Overall, parks firefighters will burn 35.4 hectares at Jarramlee Nature Reserve, Jerrabomberra Grasslands, Gungaderra Grasslands and Dunlop Grasslands.
Burns at Mulanggari Grasslands, Kama Nature Reserve and Crace Grasslands for Friday were cancelled as an expected cold front brought in strong winds.
Parks' prescribed fire coordinator Brian Levine said all the signs pointed to another dry winter this year.
"While that's less than ideal, that does provide an opportunity for us to continue burning for longer into autumn and early winter at least," Mr Levine said.
"You go back to May 2017, we've had two dry winters. We've actually been in the deficit for quite a while."
Mr Levine said the recent combination of periodic rain and lower temperatures had given them good conditions to do burns.
"It's that balance between too dry and two wet," he said.
The ACT Parks and Conservation Service said every effort had been made to wait for weather conditions that would minimise the impact of smoke across the capital.
