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A North Okanagan timber company won't have to pay B.C. Wildfire Service $156,000 to cover the cost of putting out a 30-hectare wildfire it started after a provincial appeal board ruled the company hadn't intentionally started the fire.

The B.C. Forest Appeals Commission found that while North Enderby Timber was responsible for the fire, the company hadn't "willfully" ignited it, so therefore it didn't have to pay a $156,602 bill the B.C. Wildfire Service had sent it.

The fire dates back to 2017 and took place six kilometres east of Clearwater.

According to an April 1 Forest Appeals Commission decision, after North Enderby Timber had finished its summer logging in 2016 it burnt several piles of debris later that fall.

However, in the following spring, the debris piles caused a wildfire as they hadn't fully extinguished over the winter. The wildfire spanned 30 hectares of Crown land.

The company was later fined $15,000 and ordered to pay the province $156,602 for putting out the fire, along with $109,964 to cover the cost of the timber destroyed in the blaze.

North Enderby Timber, along with its sister company Canadian Cedar Oil Technologies, which was separately fined $2,500, appealed the fines and won a partial reprieve from the costs from the Forest Appeals Commission.

The decision goes through a lengthy play-by-play of how the debris piles were burnt along with several checks that were done on the piles in the spring.

While several experts looked for signs of hot spots and "holdover" fires nothing was located.

Then in July 2017, the debris piles sparked the wildfire.

North Enderby Timber made multiple arguments in its appeal of the penalty and the costs that the fire wasn't its fault, but the Forest Appeals Commission found it was responsible for starting the fire.

The province argued with North Enderby Timber over some of the wording in the legislation.

"The reference to 'wilfully'...  must likewise be interpreted to mean that a person must have willfully or intentionally, by its acts or omissions, caused or contributed to the fire for which fire fighting costs were incurred," the Commission said.

The Commission then found the fire was accidental.

"North Enderby’s intentional ignition of the debris pile cannot be said to have been the willful and intentional ignition of the wildfire," the Commission ruled. "Neither can it be said that North Enderby’s lack of diligence in relation to the debris pile burning amounts to a wilful omission leading to the Wildfire."

The Commission goes on to say the wildfire was a "fortuitous" event.

"We have found that North Enderby did not wilfully cause, or contribute to, the wildfire. The legislation provides that persons engaged in timber harvesting pursuant to a licence issued under the Forest Act would not be responsible for paying fire control costs for wildfires they did not willfully cause or contribute to," the decision says.

The company also successfully argued the timber destroyed in the fire was only worth $66,000, not the $110,000 the province had said.

Ultimately, the Commission ruled North Enderby Timber's fine be dropped to $5,000 from $15,000 and it had to pay $66,871.79 for the damage to the Crown timber.

READ MORE: CN Rail fined $3.2M for 2018 wildfires near Lillooet

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