Nova Scotia will not lay charges in Upper Tantallon wildfire

Nova Scotia has announced it will not lay charges under the province's Forests Act in relation to a wildfire that destroyed dozens of homes and led to millions of dollars in damage in suburbs outside Halifax two years ago.

In a news release Wednesday, the Natural Resources Department said it has exhausted all avenues and is "unable to lay charges" in the blaze that destroyed 151 homes and burned 969 hectares in the communities of Upper Tantallon and Hammonds Plains.

The fire started in the Westwood Hills subdivision on May 28, 2023, and quickly spread through the woods to nearby subdivisions, forcing thousands to evacuate their homes.

The province had two years from the date of an offence to lay charges under the act.

The department said charges are only laid if there is sufficient evidence to secure a conviction, and there is a high bar for what can be used as evidence in court.

Last August, the department issued a public plea for information related to potential violations of the Forests Act that led to the devastating wildfire. 

It said a considerable amount of information had already been gathered, including from the public, but the investigation could only continue if new information was brought to light about the cause or who might be responsible.

Charges under the Forests Act are not criminal charges. An RCMP investigation into the wildfire determined there was no criminality in the cause of the blaze.

WATCH | These trees were burned in the Upper Tantallon wildfire. But their legacy lives on:

Trees scorched by N.S. wildfires given new life in home builds

1 year ago

Duration 6:22

Thousands of trees in Hammonds Plains and Upper Tantallon, N.S., were burned, blackened or destroyed by the wildfires of May 2023. Now some of them are returning in a very different form. The CBC's Aly Thomson has the story.

As the blaze burned outside Halifax in 2023, another wildfire was burning on the southwestern end of the province in Shelburne County. It would grow to become the province's largest wildfire on record at 23,379 hectares.

In January 2024, the Natural Resources Department charged Dalton Clark Stewart of Villagedale, N.S., with offences under the Forests Act in relation to that fire.

He pleaded guilty to the charge of leaving a fire unattended when it was not completely extinguished.