Mike Barre told his neighbours right away that his cigarette had started a fire that was quickly getting out of control. He told the local fire inspector, and his lawyer has been worrying for days about insurance claims.
In an interview Monday, the 50-year-old unemployed prison guard and volunteer firefighter identified himself to the rest of the country as the person who accidentally started a blaze that forced thousands from their homes.
Mr. Barre said that after the massive wildfire started, he rushed from door to door, frantically trying to help with the start of the evacuation.
"I was a basket case for a while," Mr. Barre said in an interview at his house, which was not among the 65 homes destroyed in the blaze.
"I couldn't do it after a while," he said of the door-knocking. "It just got too emotional."
Mr. Barre wouldn't say what exactly he was doing on July 30, when the fire started in the backyard of his acreage at the foot of a forested mountain in McLure, a sprawling, unincorporated community of 285 people.
"I feel terrible, beyond what words can say," said the married father of a young girl.
A volunteer with the town's fire department, Mr. Barre said he admitted to Steve Grimaldi, a fire inspector with the B.C. Ministry of Forests, that he accidentally set the blaze.
"I told him the first night of the fire that I did it."
When asked whether he started the fire with a cigarette, Mr. Barre answered, "Yeah, but it was an accident."
Kamloops RCMP last week said preliminary findings from the fire investigation indicate the blaze was accidental.
B.C. Forest Service fire-information officer Steve Bachop said it is rare for someone to admit culpability in starting a forest fire, even though Mr. Barre said what happened was an accident.
"In terms of someone coming forward like that, it's sort of new for us," Mr. Bachop said. "People cause fires, and when you consider the damage they do, it's important for us to investigate the cause of all fires."
As Barriere residents mopped up the mess yesterday from the massive forest fire, which skirted its way around the small community in British Columbia's interior, firefighters got a boost from Mother Nature.
Co-operative weather and lower temperatures are bolstering efforts to contain the McLure-Barriere fire, which has grown to more than 19,000 hectares.
"We're not seeing the same extreme fire behaviour as we did last week when it was so hot and dry," fire-information officer Kirk Hughes said. "We've been able to make a lot of progress on this."
More than 800 people are battling the fire, using 122 pieces of heavy equipment and 12 helicopters. So far, about 50 per cent of the fire has been contained since it began on July 30.
Mr. Barre's neighbour, Cheryl Land, said he came running down the hill behind their homes that afternoon, yelling that he started a fire.
As smoke started billowing from the bush, Ms. Land said, her husband, Chris, ran up the hill with a shovel to throw dirt on the fire, which had started in a 10-centimetre-deep bed of tinder-dry cedar needles.
Mr. Barre was installing a satellite dish in the back of his small acreage just before the fire started, Ms. Land said.
The blaze quickly grew, forcing officials to evacuate more than a dozen homes. Eventually, emergency officials said, up to 8,500 people from McLure north to Barriere had to flee.
The village of Louis Creek, just south of Barriere, was almost destroyed. The fire, still only half-contained, was estimated at nearly 200 square kilometres yesterday.
Mr. Barre said he's aware that townsfolk have mixed feelings about him accidentally starting the fire.
He said he is not sure whether his colleagues in the fire department will want to continue working with him.
Mr. Barre's lawyer, John Hogg, said his client is worried that insurance companies that will pay out millions of dollars in damage claims to residents and businesses may try to recoup the losses from Mr. Barre.
"There's no percentage gained if someone tries to take the boots to him, so to speak," Mr. Hogg said from Kamloops.
So far, damage estimates to properties in the Kamloops-area fire total $8.2-million, including the destruction of 39 houses, 26 trailer homes, 99 sheds and barns, as well as house contents. It doesn't include the Louis Creek sawmill, other businesses and hundreds of gutted vehicles.
Mr. Hogg said that the fact his client is openly telling everyone his story speaks volumes about the man. "He's got a social conscience; he's got a heart."
Stew Geoghegan, whose house and trailer park in Louis Creek burned to the ground, said he bumped into Mr. Barre on Sunday at the local general store.
"I told him it was a stupid thing to do," said Mr. Geoghegan, who had just two of seven trailers covered by insurance. "But there's no sense in feeling bad about him. The poor guy is beating himself enough."
Donna Morgan, who was removed from her back-country acreage and then helped fight the fire, said some people fear that Mr. Barre will commit suicide.
But Mr. Barre said he hasn't contemplated it.
"I wouldn't do that. I have a five-year-old daughter," he said.
One firefighter said he has trouble imagining what Mr. Barre must be going through. "He must just feel awful."
Mr. Bachop said forest-fire prosecutions do not happen often, pointing to charges arising from the 1994 Grimaldi fire in Penticton as the last he can remember.
In that case, 21-year-old Jeremy Kraiger, the son of a Penticton firefighter, was sentenced to six months on electric monitoring after pleading guilty to five counts of arson. The fire destroyed 18 homes and 5,500 hectares of trees and bush. The court was told that Mr. Kraiger suffered from a mental disorder.
Meanwhile, fire crews have begun cleaning up after the Strawberry Hill and Cedar Hills fires, which are fully contained. Crews are working their way in from the perimeter, digging down and soaking hot spots so the fire can't spread through the trees' root systems.
"Because our drought conditions have been so high, the fires will burn deep. If there's any woody material - roots, stumps - it'll burn deep down into the soil. So it has to be dug up and extinguished," Mr. Hughes, the information officer, said.
Firefighters are also using a helicopter with an infrared scanner to detect hidden hot spots.
The Strawberry Hill fire that forced residents from Rayleigh (just outside Kamloops), Heffley Creek and nearby rural areas to leave their homes grew to 5,731 hectares before crews managed to contain the blaze. The Cedar Hills fire stretched for 1,620 hectares.
Carol Harrington is a Canadian Press reporter. Gwendolyn Richards is a reporter for The Globe and Mail. With a report from Rod Mickleburgh