Kelowna wildfire drone offender facing possible $15K fine at sentencing<\/p>\n
Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, February 24, 2026<\/p>\n
A Kelowna man is likely to face a hefty fine after being found guilty of interfering with a helicopter actioning the McDougall Creek wildfires in 2023.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 27, 2023, Derek Leippi was in his boat and operating a miniature drone just off the shore of Okanagan Lake Resort. Leippi was using the drone to take video of the wildfire with a focus on the damage of the blaze to the resort.<\/p>\n
Leippi was charged about two years after the incident, and Justice Heinrich issued the guilty verdict in Kelowna courts on Feb. 9.<\/p>\n
At Leippe\u2019s sentencing hearing on Feb. 24, Crown counsellor Rigel Tessman asked that Leippe be fined $15,000. Tessman noted that the Crown\u2019s recommendation is well below the maximum sentence that could be imposed, a $100,000 fine and one year in prison.<\/p>\n
The crown also asked that Leippi issue a public apology, commenting that many people were impacted by the wildfire and the potential harm Leippi\u2019s action could have imposed.<\/p>\n
Leippi, representing himself, told Justice Heinrichs that he had no malicious intent by flying his drone that day and called his actions \u201cone isolated mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
The accused asked that little to no fine be imposed, as he said he\u2019s suffered enough already.<\/p>\n
Leippi claimed that the media coverage of the charges and trial had negatively impacted his reputation as a realtor and his relationship with colleagues, resulting in struggles with his mental health.<\/p>\n
Adding a $15,000 fine, Leippi said, is like adding \u201cmore fuel on a fire that\u2019s already burning\u2026 that fire being my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Heinrichs asked Leippi to explain what kind of impact a fine of that value would have on him, telling the court that a person\u2019s financial situation is considered when imposing a fine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t end up in food lines over it,\u201d Leippi said to the judge.<\/p>\n
Justice Heinrichs was not prepared to give a decision and will provide a written decision on sentencing at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kelowna wildfire drone offender facing possible $15K fine at sentencing Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, February 24, 2026 A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-497644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}