The BC Prosecution Service is determining whether charges will be laid following the notorious Elephant Hill wildfire from 2017.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Janelle Shoihet tells NL News that police have now turned that file over to the Crown – after about two years of investigating.

“This is a large scale and scope investigation that took a lot of time to get to this point. Now we’re at the point where we have completed our investigative requirement, but are committed to working with the BC Prosecution Service should they have any investigative follow-up that will be required after that,” Shoihet says.

“It’s certainly the largest one (wildfire investigation) that I can recall. I can’t speak to whether or not it’s the largest one in history or what the BC Prosecution Service may have seen from other agencies. But certainly it is a large and complex file that, from our perspective, has taken some time to get to this point.”

Police determined in January of 2018 that the Elephant Hill fire was human-caused.

The blaze started in July of 2017 and burned more than 200 structures and more than 192,000 hectares. It was called the Ashcroft Reserve fire when it first started but not long after the name was changed to the Elephant Hill fire, as the BC Wildfire Service said at the time it tries not to name wildfires after communities.

(Photo: Twitter: Ryan Lake)