The BC Wildfire Service has determined the cause of the 2017 Elephant Hill wildfire.
In a release from the BC Wildfire Service, their fire origin and cause specialists indicated in their report that the most likely cause was smoking or smoking materials.
The smoking materials classification includes matches, cigars, pipe tobacco, cigarettes, and/or marijuana.
Other potential causes of the fire were eliminated as part of the investigation, according to the release, included:
Lightning
Escaped campfire
Category 2, Category 3 or Resource Management Open Fire activity
Railroads, vehicles, and electrical transmission
Arson
The Elephant Hill wildfire started on July 6, 2017, about two and a half kilometers southeast of Ashcroft.
The fire burned 191,865 hectares in BC’s south-central Interior region, including parts of both the Kamloops Fire Centre and the Cariboo Fire Centre.