NSW says 'box-ticking' approach to 2003 fires could have cost more lives

It is more than a decade since fire swept through Canberra's south-western suburbs on January 18, 2003.

The disaster killed four people, injured 435, and destroyed 487 homes and 23 commercial and government buildings.

Countless animals were killed and almost 70 per cent of the ACT's land area was burnt.

More than a decade on, the legal battle over liability for the fire is still raging.

A series of plaintiffs represented by QBE Insurance and Wayne West, a landholder who lost his property, sued the NSW government following the fire, saying the NSW Rural Fire Service and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service were negligent in managing the fires that started throughout the Brindabella Ranges after electrical storms.

They lost their case against NSW in late 2012, with Chief Justice Terence Higgins finding NSW not to be liable, despite the fact it embraced an "inadequate and defective strategy" in its management of the fire.

The QBE plaintiffs and Mr West appealed the decision in the ACT Court of Appeal.

That appeal has been hearing submissions for the past week-and-a-half, covering a series of complex issues stemming from the management of the fires by NSW authorities.

At one point on Tuesday, senior counsel for NSW John Maconachie, QC, defended the approach of Julie Crawford, area manager of NPWS at Queanbeyan, who had assumed the role of incident controller on January 8.

Ms Crawford met with others, including representatives from the ACT, about how to manage the fires and which containment lines to use.

Mr Maconachie said she had made decisions on managing the fire based on years of experience and commonsense.

He said more lives may have been lost and more homes destroyed had she sat down for a detailed analysis, and conducted a "box-ticking exercise".

The appeal continues before a full bench on Thursday.