New Mexico residents sue for information on massive wildfire

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Dozens of residents in a small New Mexico community impacted by massive wildfires that merged in April are suing the U.S. Forest Service over what they called a failure to provide information about the government’s role in starting the blazes.

The Forest Service has acknowledged that two prescribed burns it set to clear out brush and small trees that can serve as wildfire fuel sparked two blazes that came together as the largest in New Mexico’s history and the biggest burning in the U.S. right now.

The wildfire has charred nearly 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers) in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, which sits at the southern edge of the Rocky Mountains. Several hundred homes have been destroyed.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque on behalf of 50 Mora County residents, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.

It asks the court to declare that the Forest Service improperly withheld planning documents for the burns, agreements or contracts with anyone who helped carry out the burns and information on the rules and regulations that govern the prescribed burns.

Without the information, the lawsuit alleges, the residents “cannot determine the Forest Service’s responsibility — other than media accounts — for starting the fire.”

The Forest Service told the Santa Fe New Mexican that it does not comment on pending litigation. The agency has said unexpected, erratic winds during one prescribed burn carried embers outside the targeted area. The other wildfire emerged from a burn set on a pile of dead vegetation in January that smoldered for weeks, even under snow.

The agency has put a hold on prescribed burns nationwide pending its own investigation.