B.C. forestry company must pay $343,000 for starting wildfire

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has upheld more than $343,000 in cost-recovery fines that were handed to a forestry company for starting a wildfire in 2016.

A decision posted Monday says the wildfire near Nazko, in central B.C., burned about four square kilometres after escaping from a debris pile that a contractor set on fire at a Tolko Industries cut block.

The court heard that four socalled holdover fires were reported by Tolko to the B.C. Wildfire Service in the spring of 2016.

The fires burned under the snow-covered ground for periods ranging from six weeks to five months after they were thought to have been put out, but the wildfire near Nazko was the only one that escaped the cut block.

Tolko initially won an appeal through the Forest Appeals Commission, which overturned the pay order saying the company was exempt under the Wildfire Regulation because it didn't intend to start the fire and it found the blaze was a result of forestry activity.

However, Supreme Court Justice Michael Brundrett says in his decision that the commission made a mistake when it interpreted “fire” to mean “wildfire,” separating the intentional act of starting the burn pile from the wildfire that resulted from it. Tolko burned about 65,000 debris piles in the 2015-16 harvesting season.