State’s Strict Liability for Managed Forest Fires under Pakistan’s Tort Jurisprudence

Abstract

For too long, the legal response to forest fires in Pakistan has been stuck in a loop of finding a criminal match-lighter while ignoring the bigger picture of who actually manages the land. This article takes a hard look at how we can use Tort Law to stop treating these fires as unavoidable mysteries and start treating them as failures of responsibility. By looking at the doctrine of Strict Liability, we argue that if the state or a private owner lets a forest become a tinderbox of dry pine needles and invasive species, they have created a man-made hazard, not a natural landscape. This shifts the focus from the fire’s start to the land’s condition. The study also aims at the Act of God defense. In a world of climate change and 45-degree heatwaves that we see coming weeks in advance, calling a predictable fire an Act of God is simply a legal excuse for poor management. We argue that the state should be held vicariously liable for the omissions of its officers—the guards who don't patrol or the managers who leave fire-breaks uncleared. Lastly, we propose a common-sense shift in the burden of proof. Since the state holds all the maps and logs, they should be the ones to prove they did their job, rather than forcing a victim to prove how a fire started in a thousand-acre forest. It is time our legal system stopped protecting negligent managers and started protecting the environment.