Brian Paré, 38, forced hundreds of people to evacuate their homes and destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest by setting the fires in Quebec last year, CBC reports.

He yesterday pleaded guilty to 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life.

In Facebook posts made after his first fire, he claimed the government was setting fires to trick people into believing in climate change, which he suggested was a hoax.

There were nearly 700 forest fires in Quebec last summer, the worst in half a century, according to charity SOPFEU. Around 5.1 million hectares of forest burned.