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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Snowfield Development Corporation may face sentencing for only one criminal charge, despite having pleaded guilty to two charges related to a forest fire last summer.

The charges stem from a fire at Drybones Bay in the summer of 2007. The company was accused of leaving an unextinguished fire and setting an outdoor fire without taking every reasonable precaution to prevent the fire from spreading.

In territorial court on Monday, Judge Bernadette Schmaltz questioned whether convicting on both charges would make sense or if one of the charges was redundant.

"Having heard the facts I now find myself seized with it," said Schmaltz.

"It's a discrete point," said defence attorney Paul Smith.

Smith was granted an adjournment to make further arguments on Wednesday morning. Despite the fact the guilty pleas have been entered on both, no convictions have been handed down yet.

Crown attorney Roger Sheppard presented details of the fire, which lasted from June 30 to July 7, 2007, which destroyed 393 hectares and cost $330,341 to extinguish.

Reading the facts of the case, Sheppard said employee Ray Hill had admitted to leaving the area where a fire had been set in a "burn barrel" without checking if it had been fully extinguished. The court was told that Hill was doing his normal duties on the day of the fire.

Separate charges were laid against Snowfield Development and Hill, following an investigation by the GNWT Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The Crown's office decided to lay charges after receiving the report from the department.

Snowfield president Robert Patterson, a resident of Vancouver, contacted the chiefs of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation in Ndilo and Dettah. Since then Snowfield has spent approximately $230,895 on remediation work, including restoration of a graveyard destroyed by the fire, which belonged to the Yellowknives Dene. Snowfield also chartered a plane to fly in members of the First Nation for a re-dedication ceremony attended by both chiefs and employees of Snowfield.