A Cache Creek man who started a wildfire that cost nearly a million dollars to put out has had a fine nearly cut in half.

Brian Parke was fined $921,927 two years ago, after being found responsible for starting the Pavilion Lake wildfire in 2012.

However, that fine was appealed and, last month, was reduced to $500,000 dollars, after Parke’s lawyers and the provincial government settled out of court through the Forest Appeal Commission.

BC Wildfire Service deputy director Les Husband wasn’t involved in the appeal process but issued the original fine to Parke in 2017, when he was the manager of the Prince George Fire Centre.

“There was a fire that was started on Mr. Parke’s property that escaped, got onto Crown land. And the sum (of the fine) was the cost of suppression for the BC Wildfire Service putting out that fire,” Husband says. “What was involved in that would’ve been crews, equipment, helicopters, tankers, etc. And those all come into play as part of the cost of suppression that we try to recover if it is a human start and has been a contravention, which is was in this case.”

The Pavilion Lake fire grew to 140 hectares and took nearly four months for crews to fully extinguish. According to the original fine order, Parke had lit a burn pile on his property in April of 2012 which smoldered for more than a month before sparking into a wildfire that spread onto Crown land.