Adapting Australia’s Legal Frameworks for Future Fires

Australia is the most fire-prone continent on Earth.

The smoke from a prescribed fire is visible above treetops

While many Australian ecosystems evolved to flourish with fire, climate warming and drying trends weather is turning ecosystems across the country into fuel for bushfires that are becoming more frequent, longer lasting, and more damaging, and these changes are happening faster than expected.

This research project examines the lessons and insights that Australian law- and policymakers can learn from other Australian jurisdictions, and from research and law reform in the United States, Canada and southern Europe, to enhance the effectiveness and adaptiveness of Australia's bushfire mitigation and hazard reduction laws.

The project is designed to support the development of more adaptive, future-oriented laws, policies and strategies for bushfire hazard reduction, including through changes to liability rules, removing barriers to cultural and ecological forms of burning, revising authorising provisions in legislation for public and private land management, and for improving the coherence and accessibility of building and land use planning rules for hazard reduction.

Dr McCormack led the first project to map the ‘anatomy’ of Australia’s bushfire laws, illustrated in graphic form below and published as McCormack et al (2022) 46(1) Melbourne University Law Review 156.

A green circular Bushfire Law Anatomy graphic

Graphic: An anatomy of Australia’s legal framework for bushfire, from McCormack et al (2022) 46(1) Melbourne University Law Review 156.

  • Project researchers

    Dr Phillipa McCormack, Adelaide Law School and the Environment Institute

    University of Adelaide Research Assistants:

    • Maya Clarke
    • Finn McIntyre
    • Emma Lush
    • Hiba Farok

    This project is funded by the Australian Research Council under a Discovery Early Career Research Award (2025-2028), titled ‘Preparing Australia for a fiery future: Five strategies to guide law reform’.

    Pilot components of this project received funding from Natural Hazards Research Australia under its Early Career Research Fellowship program (2022, 2023); the Allied Firefighters’ Union of Australia (2023-4); and the North East NSW Forestry Hub (2023-4).

Project outputs and engagement

Outputs associated with this project include peer reviewed publications, a published paper in a conference proceedings and various conference presentations, invited keynotes, consulting reports and political briefings.

  • Peer reviewed publications

    •    McCormack PC, J McDonald, M Eburn, SJ Little, DMJS Bowman, RMB Harris, ‘An anatomy of Australia’s legal framework for bushfire’ (2022) 46(1) Melbourne University Law Review 156
    •    McCormack PC, Miller R and McDonald J, ‘Prescribed burning on private land: Reflections on recent law reform in Australia and California’ International Journal of Wildland Fire (in review)
    •    Bowman DMJ and McCormack PC, ‘Arrested Policy Development for Fire Bunkers in Australia’ (2023) Fire 6(8): 298
    •    Woinarski J, McCormack PC, McDonald J, Rumpff L, Leggett S, Garnett S, Wintle B, ‘Making Choices: Prioritising the Protection of Biodiversity in Wildfires’ (2023) International Journal of Wildland Fire doi:10.1071/WF22229
    •    McCormack PC, ‘Climate change, wildfires and wetland ecosystem services: Governing transformation’ (2020) 39(3) The University of Queensland Law Journal 417-447

  • Conference papers
    • McCormack PC, Miller R and McDonald J, ‘Prescribed burning on private land: Trends in legal reform in Australia and California’, Proceedings for the Fire and Climate Conference, Pasadena and Melbourne, International Association of Wildland Fire

  • Conference presentations

    •    McCormack, ‘Fire, forests and furry things: where’s the law at?’, Presentation to Ecological Society of Australia, Melbourne (Dec 2024)
    •    McCormack, ‘Save our Strathbogie Forest Inc v DEECA Secretary [2024] FCA 317’, Poster presentation to the Ecological Society of Australia, Melbourne (Dec 2024)
    •    McCormack, ‘Climate adaptation and emergency laws’, Keynote presentation to the annual conference of the Allied Firefighters’ Union of Australia, Canberra (Nov 2024)
    •    McCormack, Miller and McDonald, ‘Getting ready for future fires together: Legal reform for prescribed fire on private land’, IAWF Fire & Climate Conference, Pasadena (May 2022)
    •    McCormack, ‘What do we already know about climate-adaptive law reform? Opportunities to improve bushfire laws in Australia’, IAWF Fire & Climate Conference, Melbourne (June 2022)
    •    McCormack, ‘Future bushfire laws’, presentation to the Early Career Researchers’ Workshop, Natural Hazards Research Australia Research Forum (Oct 2022)
    •    McCormack, ‘Biodiversity & Good Fire in the Anthropo/Pyrocene’, 8th Frontiers in Environmental Law Colloquium, Sydney, Australia (9-11 February 2022)

  • Invited keynotes and presentations
    • McCormack, ‘Breaking down legal barriers to cultural fire through natural resource management in Tasmania’, Natural Resource Management South (March 2025)
    • McCormack, McKemey and Costello, Launch of Report into Legal Barriers to Cultural Burning, New South Wales Parliament (November 2024)
    • McCormack, ‘Dismantling legal barriers (and building legal bridges) to cultural burning’, presentation to the Tasmanian Bushfire Research Group (August 2024)
    • McCormack ‘Rules about risk: fires and the law’ for Research Tuesdays: Risk-ready or not? The University of Adelaide (March 2023)
    • McCormack, ‘Imagining and designing coherent, adaptation-oriented laws about wildfire’, California Science Exchange Monthly Seminar Series (March 2023)
    • McCormack, Presentation on inaugural NHRA Early Career Fellowship, to the Natural Hazards Research Australia Education and Training Committee (Nov 2022)

  • Expert reports

    •    McCormack PC, Riera D, Shavers D, Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Wildland Fire Sector: an IAWF Position Paper (International Association of Wildland Fire, Feb 2025)
    •    McCormack, McKemey and Costello, Overcoming legal and policy barriers to cultural burning in NSW, a report for the North East NSW Forestry Hub (Nov 2024)
    •    McCormack, report and expert evidence on climate adaptation and private bushfire shelters in national and state laws, given in a matter before the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (August 2023)
    •    McCormack, Institutional arrangements for Australia’s state and territory fire agencies, a report for the Allied Firefighters’ Union of Australia (Nov 2023)

  • Political briefings and international meetings

    •    Meeting with Dr Rebecca Miller, ‘The West on Fire Project’, Huntington-University of Southern California and the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University (May 2022)
    •    Multiple briefings and meetings with the Tasmanian Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Management, Chief of the Tasmanian Fire Service, Tasmanian Government, and staff coordinating the Tasmanian Fire Law Reform project (2022, 2023, 2024)