I recently (3 May 2015) had the privilege to deliver the opening keynote address at the 9th Wildland Fire Litigation Conference in Monterey, California. My theme was ‘Trends in Australian Wildfire Litigation’. A correspondent wrote and asked if I could make that presentation available via this site, which I’m happy to do. So if you’re interested you can access
- the powerpoint slides; and
- an audio recording (streaming mp3), with the introduction and Q&A session deleted. I deleted these as you couldn’t hear the other speakers and even if you could, I didn’t have their permission to record them and to publish their input.
Apart from this conference I also attended the Learning from Unintended Consequences course hosted by the National Advanced Fire & Resource Institute and then visited the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Centre. During these visits I was able to interview a number of key players who have been instrumental in shifting the US Forest Service to a learning organisation that is focused on learning from, rather than blaming for, unintended consequences. The lessons learned by me, and insights shared, will continue to inform our research on improving the lessons learning process in Australia.
I hope that is of some interest and I thank the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC for their assistance in funding this trip and our ongoing research.
Australian Emergency Law 
Anyone involved in volunteer fire fighting in Australia should listen to the audio recording of Michael’s presentation at this conference. A tour de force in so many ways. He has succintly (but in a light-handed way) explained the trends in litigation in Australia arising out of wildfires over the past 30 years and emphasised that so far the Australian Courts have held firm in protecting the States/Territories and volunteer fire fighters from any personal liability. Interesting that he mentions Electricity Supply Companies as a plaintiff liability still to be tested because they have had a history of settling actions on the steps of the Court. Pragmatic decisions when backed by insurers, but opening an avenue for an adventurous litigation law firm to explore further in a class action in the future. Michael also suggests to his audience that in Australia there might still be an unresolved litiguous issue against a defendant for a plaintiff suffering loss of the defendant – ‘you own the fuel build up – you own the fire’. As volunteer fire fighters how many of us have attended fires complained about by the landholder in a wildfire situation when it was immediately clear to blind Freddy that the landholder was the victim of his own negligence in doing nothing about the fuel build-up around his property. Yet they are often the first to complain of any loss when the volunteer fire-fighters cannot save their property, but could have if the landowner had carried out some simple clean-up or clearing measures long before the fire had started. Michael is an academic lawyer. But if he not also a volunteer fire-fighter with some real experience in a fire-ground he has fooled me.