A British pensioner was ordered to pay compensation of €10.6 million and given an 18 month prison sentence after he accidentally started a forest fire when he got lost in Spain.
Michael Robert Hanks, 65, admitted starting the blaze in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, near Granada in 2005.
He had been on holiday at the house which he owns with his partner Michelle Martine Noell Stevenson, 58, when they got lost on a walk.
Mr Hanks called emergency services to help find them and then decided to start a fire to help rescuers locate them but the blaze got out of control.
He put dry wood and paper in a circle of stones, but did not dampen nearby ground as walkers are told to do and the fire spread quickly to the nearby ground.
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In what is believed to be the highest ever compensation order made in a forest fire case in Spain, a judge in Granada imposed the fine for the blaze which destroyed 3,354 hectares in a Natural Park and took eight days to put out.
Mr Hanks, from Colchester, Essex and a former chief executive of Islington & Shoreditch Housing Association, must pay a fine of €1,800 plus compensation totalling €10,605,933.63 to the Junta de Andalucia, the regional government in this part of southern Spain.
As the jail term is less than two years and Mr Hanks has spent some time in custody, he will not be sent to prison.
Mr Hanks pleaded guilty to starting the fire in a Natural Park. Ms Stevenson, from Devilleles, in Rouen, France, was cleared.
The judge calculated the compensation by the cost of putting out the fire which was €1.3m. In total 277 firefighters were involved in trying to control the blaze.
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The court also took into account damage to the offices of the Andalusian Water Agency in the village of Lanjarón, Granada, which were valued at €65.000.
The major part of the compensation was for the restoration work which the regional authorities had to carry out after the fire. This figure was originally put at €9.1m.
The Junta de Andalucia has started 140 cases against people who started forest fires, of which 55 have resulted in convictions.
Until Mr Hanks’ case, the highest compensation order was €1.3m for a forest fire caused by a barbecue in Estepona, a resort popular with British tourists near Malaga.