In State Farm Fire and Cas. Co. v. Leverton, 732 N.E.2d 1094 (Ill. 2000), the court stated that under the intentional acts exclusion coverage is denied when the insured has intended to act and specifically intended to harm a third party; the case involved the insured striking a third party with a beer bottle.

In most cases where the exclusion held, the intended action was injury or damage to a third party or a third party's property. In U.S. Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Perez, 384 So.2d 904 (1980), the court ruled that while the insured intended to only frighten another party by pointing a gun at him and fired accidentally killing the other party, that coverage still applied. There was no intent to hit or kill anyone, so the intentional act exclusion did not apply.

In this situation, your insured was doing a controlled burn on his own property with no intent to damage property of others. Therefore, the exclusion should not apply.