The Kilmore East blaze was the largest of the "Black Saturday" February 2009 wildfires in southern Victoria state that left 173 dead and razed more than 2,000 homes, the nation's worst natural disaster of modern times.
More than 10,000 people have joined the action against SP AusNet, which is majority owned by Singapore Power, over the Kilmore fire, which claimed 119 of the 173 lives lost.
Conservative estimates of the compensation payout are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, with a special courtroom purpose-built to accommodate the sheer volume of people involved in the case. Full story
