A man who set multiple fires in Kelowna, B.C., and threatened a bylaw officer with a slingshot has been sentenced to jail after a judge found that significant mental health and substance-use issues reduced his moral culpability for the crimes. Robert Austin Teal, now 49 years old, pleaded guilty to arson and assault, and was sentenced to a combined 21 months in jail after the incident on Knox Mountain last fall. “The potential for extreme damage and danger cannot be overstated,” wrote provincial court Judge Andrew Tam in his sentencing decision this week. “The Okanagan is particularly sensitive to fires and the region has seen some devastating blazes that have destroyed many homes and displaced many lives in recent years,” he continued. “Indeed, on the day this decision is released, the province is currently in a state of emergency due to wildfires. There are communities in the Okanagan under evacuation, property destroyed and lives irreversibly affected. There may even have been fatalities as a result.” Knox Mountain fires The court heard that police and bylaw officers were called to Knox Mountain Park at around 3 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2025, for reports that a man dressed in full camouflage was using a slingshot to target construction workers near the base of the mountain. A short time later, witnesses reported the man was lighting fires and attempting to spread the flames by piling on branches and leaves. “Due to dry conditions and shifting winds, the fires spread rapidly, which put the numerous hikers, bikers and residents in the area at risk,” the Kelowna RCMP said in a statement following the incident. When authorities moved in to arrest Teal, he pointed his slingshot at a bylaw officer. While the weapon was not loaded, it “nevertheless caused the officer to fear for his safety,” the judge wrote, explaining the assault charge. Because Teal did not believe the bylaw official was a “real peace officer,” he pleaded guilty to simple assault, rather than the more serious crime of assaulting a peace officer, which the Crown prosecutor accepted, according to the decision. Paranoid delusions In the months leading up to the fires, Teal was experiencing increasingly severe paranoid and delusional beliefs, the court heard. A psychiatric assessment diagnosed Teal with substance-use disorder and found that when intoxicated or experiencing delirium or psychosis, he can exhibit assaultive, destructive and disinhibited behaviour. When sober, he does not otherwise have a mental disorder, according to the decision. Shortly before the fires, the decision said Teal went to the Kelowna RCMP detachment seeking help as he feared that he, his sister and her children could be victims of sexual assault. He also claimed that police in Saskatchewan had arranged fake agents to arrest him in connection with a triple homicide—claims the judge found were not based in reality. The court also considered Teal’s troubled childhood and long history of addiction and homelessness. His mother struggled with alcohol dependency and bipolar disorder and was physically abusive and neglectful, the decision said. Teal recalled being locked in a basement for days without food, heat or electricity when he was six years old. At 12, his intoxicated mother put a gun to his head. Teal developed a drug addiction early in life and became involved with the criminal justice system as a youth. He was sentenced to two years in 2022 for theft, mischief and a weapons offence. Apology to victims Upon his release from incarceration, Teal settled into a “positive rhythm,” the decision said, with an addictions case worker describing him as compliant, engaged and proud of his accomplishments. Teal maintained sobriety from January 2024 until the summer of 2025, when he went to Saskatchewan to visit his ill father, thereby losing his bed at a Kelowna recovery centre. Teal returned to B.C. homeless, triggering a descent that involved multiple police interactions and culminated in the fires. Before the judge delivered a sentence of 18 months for arson and three months for assault, Teal addressed the court and expressed remorse for his crimes. “He was obviously in a much healthier state at his sentencing hearing than he was at the time of the offences,” the judge wrote. “He apologized to everyone involved, saying that he loves the city of Kelowna and its people.” Teal received 435 days of credit for time served in pre-trial custody, leaving 105 days to serve on the arson charge, followed by a consecutive 90-day sentence for the assault.
