B.C. man billed more than $100K to cover cost of fighting 2019 wildfire

A man living in northwest British Columbia has been billed more than $100,000 to cover the province's cost of fighting a wildfire that started on his property in 2019.

Eldon Whalen was ordered to pay back $100,688 that the government spent extinguishing a wildfire that spread from a burn pile on his property in the Kispiox Valley, roughly 450 kilometres northwest of Prince George, B.C.

"The open fire that caused the wildfire was deliberately ignited, the defences under [the applicable law] do not apply, and, if not for the immediate response of the B.C. Wildfire Service, the impacts of the wildfire would likely have been even more widespread," read a decision from B.C.'s Forest Appeals Commission this spring.

"Whalen has not convinced me that a reasonable level of care was taken to understand his obligations under the [law] and avoid the contravention."

Whalen is one of the latest people ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars under a section of provincial law that allows the government to recover firefighting costs from people responsible for starting wildfires — including one man who got a bill for half a million dollars.

The decision said Whalen started a burn pile to get rid of some vegetative material — like grass or tree clippings — after clearing some land at his property on Muldoon Road on March 31, 2019.

He lit a Category 2 open fire, or a fire burning a pile of material no bigger than two metres high and three metres wide. There wasn't a Category 2 fire ban in place at the time and Whalen tended the flames with tools and buckets of water over the next days and weeks.

B.C.'s Wildfire Act allows residents to start fires on rural property under conditions that include taking certain precautions to make sure the flames don't spread to the larger forest.

But at some point, Whalen's fire spread.

On May 10, Whalen noticed smoke and flames near the site of the pile as he drove past the property and phoned 911.

The fire ultimately threatened homes and burned more than 11 hectares of land, the majority of which was privately owned. No major buildings were lost and no one was hurt, but the decision said the fire "could have been much larger" if firefighters hadn't responded "within the hour."

An investigation confirmed the origin of the fire. Whalen was ordered to pay the $100,688 in 2022, as well as a $3,000 administrative penalty.

He appealed that decision on the grounds that he took reasonable care to ensure the fire didn't spread, like waiting to light the fire until snow had soaked the ground, staying on site after lighting the fire, pouring water on the smouldering fire, visiting the burn pile every day for a week and several times over the following weeks and digging into the ashes to confirm the ground was wet and cold.

Whalen said his mistake was believing the fire was out because there weren't any visible signs it was still burning, like flame or smoke, and not realizing the fire was moving underground.