Pierce Brosnan, whose fictitious movie character James Bond has been in hot water plenty of times, pleaded guilty on Thursday to stepping off a trail in a thermal area during a November visit to Yellowstone national park.

Brosnan, who called in to the court hearing, was fined $500 and ordered to make a $1,000 donation to Yellowstone Forever – a non-profit organization that supports the park – by 1 April, court records showed.

A second petty offense, for violating closures and use limits, was dismissed by US magistrate judge Stephanie Hambrick.

Brosnan’s attorney, Karl Knuchel, was not immediately available for comment.

Brosnan, 70, walked in an off-limits area at Mammoth Terraces, in the northern part of Yellowstone near the Wyoming-Montana line, on 1 November, according to the citations. He was in the park on a personal visit and not for film work, the US attorney’s office for Wyoming has said.

Mammoth Terraces is a scenic spot of mineral-encrusted hot springs bubbling from a hillside. The spot is just one of the park’s hundreds of thermal features, which range from spouting geysers to gurgling mud pots, with water at or near the boiling point.

Going out-of-bounds in such areas can be dangerous: some of the millions of people who visit Yellowstone each year get badly burned by ignoring warnings not to stray off the trail.

Getting caught can bring legal peril, too, with jail time, hefty fines and bans from the park handed down to trespassers regularly.

In addition to his four James Bond films, Brosnan starred in the 1980s TV series Remington Steele and is known for starring roles in the films Mrs Doubtfire and The Thomas Crown Affair.