Wilful fire-raising is a

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...

offence under Scots law applicable to deliberately starting fires with intent to cause damage to property. The offence is not fully equivalent to the offence of arson in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...

. The difference is that wilful fire-raising only covers fires that were started deliberately. The English-Welsh offence of arson can include cases where the fire was not entirely deliberate but made possible through malicious or reckless behaviour. In Scots law, if a fire is the result of an act of recklessness then the offence of

culpable and reckless conduct Culpable and Reckless Conduct is a common law crime under Scots Law. Overview Culpable and Reckless Conduct has no specific definition but deals with culpable and reckless acts which cause injury to others or create the risk of injury, with n ...

applies. It is common to find both offences charged together where criminal events involve fire and both offences carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. In practice, wilful fire-raising is often treated as being equivalent to arson for some purposes such as statistics. Prior to the case of ''Byrne v H.M. Advocate (No. 2)'' there was a distinction between "wilful fire-raising" and "culpable and reckless fire-raising". The former dealt with heritable property (e.g. buildings, trees, crops) while the latter dealt with other property. That case determined that fire-raising (in a criminal context) would be either wilful or reckless (distinct from English statute law s.1 Criminal Damage Act 1971 which places both together).

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