Man fined $100K for causing B.C. wildfire wins appeal, may not have to pay after all

A B.C. man whose open burning caused a wildfire in 2019 and led to more than $100,000 in firefighting costs has won his appeal before the B.C. Supreme Court.

A B.C. man whose open burning caused a wildfire in 2019 and led to more than $100,000 in firefighting costs has won his appeal before the B.C. Supreme Court.

The BC Wildfire Service – acting on behalf of the forests minister – ordered Eldon Whalen to pay a $3,000 administrative penalty, plus $100,688.12 to cover firefighting costs, after finding him responsible for causing the fire he reported to the service on May 10, 2019.

The fire burned a total of 11.5 hectares, most of it privately owned land, in the Kispiox Valley in northwestern B.C.'s Skeena-Stikine Region.

Wildfire crews classified the blaze as "under control" on May 16, 2019, and it was extinguished by June 17 of that year.

Whalen appealed the wildfire service's order to the Forest Appeals Commission, which upheld the penalty in a decision issued last June. 

On Wednesday, however, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen found that the commission had made errors in its application of the law, and ordered it to reconsider the case. 

In his appeal submissions, Whalen argued that the commission had made several different errors of law.