The Idaho Attorney General’s Office is suing the U.S. Forest Service over its denial of a public records request seeking federal wildfire suppression policies used in the state since 2012.
Deputy Attorney General Rowdy Keller filed the request Feb. 5, 2025, seeking policies and interpretations used by the forest service in managing wildfires and using prescribed burns as a preventative measure.
A records coordinator for the USFS based in Missoula shared some publicly available links to government websites on March 5 after an initial phone call narrowed the scope of the request.
Keller responded March 7, asking for work to begin fulfilling the request.
“Most of what you are seeking … are in those links,” Jason Darelius, the records coordinator, wrote back the same day.
Darelius said the full request hadn’t been “perfected” yet and that the agency would not begin fulfilling it until its finalization.
Two weeks later, Keller emailed again, asking the agency to fully respond to his records request.
“Unlike the USFS, the [Bureau of Land Management] is processing our nearly identical FOIA request without excuse,” he said. “The different approach taken by the two agencies concerning our requests underscores the potentially unreasonable position the USFS is taking in this matter.”
The Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 business days, though they don’t have to produce the records in that same timeframe.
On April 14, six days after the deadline to respond had passed, the Idaho Attorney General’s Office filed an appeal with the forest service, saying its request had been “constructively denied” due to the lack of a response.
Again, according to court records, the agency failed to respond to the appeal within 20 business days.
After following up on May 15, Keller received a reply apologizing for the delay.
The processing center handling records requests has a “large backlog” dating back to 2020, the reply said, and that Idaho’s appeal is still being processed for a final determination
“... we are diligently working to process each appeal. Thank you. Your patience is greatly appreciated.”
The AG’s office filed its lawsuit against the USFS in late July, demanding a judge order the agency to release records associated with its request and cover attorneys fees.
USFS has yet to respond to the case.
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