Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd[1] is a tort law case from the High Court of Australia, which decided it would abolish the rule in Rylands v Fletcher,[2] and the ignis suus principle, incorporating them generally into the tort of negligence.

A fire, caused by an independent contractor's employee welding negligently, began on the defendant's premises and spread to a nearby property.

General Jones suffered damage when the vegetables were ruined by fire which destroyed Burnie property.

Burnie, by allowing its contractor to introduce dangerous substances and activities on site, owed a duty of care to Jones to take reasonable steps to prevent fire, and the breach created liability under the normal rules of negligence.

Under those principles, a person who takes advantage of his or her control of premises to introduce a dangerous substance, to carry on a dangerous activity, or to allow another to do one of those things, owes a duty of reasonable care to avoid a reasonably foreseeble risk of injury or damage to the person or the property of another.