(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)

A convicted Kamloops-area arsonist is back in court after allegedly breaching her conditional sentence order.

Angela Elise Cornish, 42, was sentenced on Sept. 26, but she's accused of breaching her conditions just two weeks later.

She's facing two counts of breaching her conditions, but it's not clear exactly which conditions she allegedly breached. The court issued a warrant for her arrest on Oct. 13, and she was released four days later, according to BC Prosecution Service spokesperson Dan McLaughlin.

Cornish pleaded guilty in January and followed strict bail conditions for more than a year. Last month, she was ordered to spend three months on house arrest then another three months under a curfew and other conditions.

The investigation started in April 2022, when a resident saw smoke in the hills near Westwold and a suspicious truck leaving the scene.

The blaze was tackled before it could spread across the already-charred region. The late-April fires came at the beginning of a wildfire season following the devastating White Rock Lake wildfire the previous summer, which swept from Monte Lake to the west side of Okanagan Lake.

There were "serious evidentiary hurdles" in tying her to the Westwold fire, Crown prosecutor Nadia Farinelli told the court, but police followed her more than once to rural areas south of Kamloops where Cornish lit more fires in the forest.

She was caught with multiple butane tanks, lighters, hand sanitizer and fire starter as she drove away from the area.

BC Wildfire Service spent around $15,000 to douse the fires she started and plans to recover the costs from Cornish.

At the time of the fires, Cornish was dealing with withdrawal from her medication dexedrine, according to her lawyer Lana Walker.

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The drug is an amphetamine typically used for ADHD, but that's not why she used it. The court heard that she started using it as a stimulant while working night shifts as a nurse, noting that she's currently unemployed and not practicing.

Walker said she is a "lover of animals" and has a penchant for campfires, which she used to "reconnect with nature" while dealing with withdrawals.

"The intention was not to start large, damaging fires. It was for personal healing and growth," Walker told the court at the time.

Provincial court judge Roy Dickey expressed concerns with the risk associated with arson in a forest. Although the arsons weren't intended to harm people or damage private property, they had the risk of spreading into massive wildfires.

He agreed to a six-month conditional sentence, which was presented as a joint submission by both Crown and defence. She was warned at the time that she could face jail time if she breached her conditions.

Cornish will appear in court again later this week.

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