Lawyers for Keith Matthew Emerald want to know why officials failed to record a phone call in which he recanted his admission to starting a campfire believed to have sparked the Rim fire that burned into Yosemite National Park last year.
Emerald’s lawyers also want to examine personnel files of U.S. Forest Service investigators who interviewed Emerald to question their credibility as witnesses.
Lawyers on Wednesday sparred in U.S. District Court in Fresno over documentation that could be used in Emerald’s trial. He faces multiple counts of starting a fire on Aug. 17, 2013, that grew beyond his control in the Clavey River Canyon in Stanislaus National Forest. The Rim fire grew to 257,000 acres, the third largest in California history.