VANCOUVER — A British Columbia 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.
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. "The language does not require the person to intend to start a wildfire that accidentally spreads from a wilfully lit controlled fire," he says in his decision.