As we reported on August 6, the two California U.S. senators and several local House members signed a letter asking the Government Accountability Office to look into the management of last year’s Station fire that burned 160,000 acres and killed two firefighters near Los Angeles.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, has now agreed to investigate the U. S. Forest Service’s decisions and tactics during the early stages of the fire. There has been criticism that their anemic response to the fire, and their failure to fill firefighters’ requests for air tankers on the morning of the second day of the fire, led to the fire growing from a small fire that morning to the largest fire in the history of Los Angeles County — and the deaths of two firefighters from the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

The U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General is also investigating the Forest Service’s failure to release recordings of telephone calls radio transmissions related to the fire after they were twice requested by the LA Times using the Freedom of Information Act. The probe by the IG could result in criminal charges, much like their investigation of the Thirtymile wildfire led to felony criminal charges resulting in a firefighter being sentenced to 90 days in a work-release facility and 3 years of probation.