Idaho men defrauded feds, ‘selfishly damaged’ wildfire services. Here’s how

Nicole Blanchard, Idaho Statesman

SALMON (Idaho Statesman) — Two Idaho men accused of working together to rig contract prices for firefighting equipment used by the U.S. Forest Service have pleaded guilty to federal fraud and conspiracy charges.

The Office of Public Affairs for the U.S. Department of Justice announced in a news release last week that 62-year-old Kris Bird, of Salmon, submitted a guilty plea in late March for seven charges — five counts of wire fraud and one count each of bid rigging and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Bird was scheduled to stand trial on the charges in two weeks.

Co-conspirator Ike Tomlinson, of Terreton, pleaded guilty in May 2024, according to a separate news release.

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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho announced the charges against the men in late 2023. The two men and an unnamed co-conspirator spent years communicating and agreeing to rig bids for wildfire fuel truck services for the Boise and Salmon wildfire dispatch centers, according to court documents filed in support of Bird’s guilty plea.

The Forest Service creates a dispatch priority list of which equipment vendors it will work with based on the bids the vendors submit. Bids are supposed to be confidential so vendors cannot underbid competitors. The equipment rentals can cost thousands per truck per day.

Calls and texts between Bird and Tomlinson showed they coordinated to “squeeze” competitors out of the market and undercut their competition. Their companies earned tens of thousands of dollars in contracts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“As the defendants have now conceded, they selfishly damaged essential taxpayer-funded services critical to protecting the American public from wildfires,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater, of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, in the department’s news release.

Tomlinson and Bird are scheduled for sentencing in June. They could face up to 20 years in prison for each wire fraud-related charge and up to 10 years for bid rigging, as well as millions of dollars in fines.