This story is co-published by Public Domain.
One afternoon in late September 2024, the Owyhee County Sheriff’s office began fielding reports of multiple smoke columns billowing from near Josephine Creek Ranch, in Idaho’s remote southwest corner.
Michael Boren, a tech megamillionaire and Trump appointee who now oversees the U.S. Forest Service, has an ownership stake in the Josephine Creek Ranch, valued between $500,001 and $1 million, according to his 2026 financial disclosure, which Public Domain and High Country News obtained this week. The ranch is managed by Boren’s brother, Steve Boren, who called the Boise Interagency Dispatch Center earlier that day to report that he would be conducting prescribed burns on “private land” a couple of miles south of the ranch. According to an investigation, after phone calls started coming into 911, Steve Boren assured fire dispatchers that “All is good. The fires stayed on private land.”
But as officials with the Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) would discover and document in a lengthy investigative report, Steve Boren started the fires — at least 20 separate ignitions — on land owned by the state of Idaho and leased to Josephine Creek Ranch Inc. for cattle grazing. (A recent federal ethics disclosure confirms that Michael Boren has an ownership stake in that company.) When he ignited the fires, Steve Boren did not have a required burn permit, which he told investigators was “a mistake,” and lit the fires during what the state investigator called “a hold on any burning due to the excessively dry fuels,” according to the department investigation.
In the end, the blaze — dubbed the Rosie Fire — consumed more than 5,600 acres of state, federal and private lands, and cost at least $950,000 to contain, according to incident reports from the National Interagency Fire Center. Josephine Creek Ranch spans some 2,500 acres and is surrounded by large swaths of Idaho state land and federal parcels managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
Public Domain and High Country News obtained the IDL fire investigation report through a state public records request this week. In the document’s 78 pages, investigators detail how the area where Steve Boren ignited the fires, on state land, was “contradictory to what he initially told the BLM dispatcher”; how “he clearly intended to have these fires progress beyond their original ignition areas,” and his view that the fire was “nothing but good.”
The report lists Michael Boren as the owner of the ranch and his brother as its manager. Josephine Creek Ranch, Inc. is also listed on Michael Boren’s financial disclosure, and he served as secretary/treasurer of the organization from March 2014 to February 2025.
Michael Boren was confirmed as U.S. Department of Agriculture undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment in January — a role that oversees the Forest Service, which has expansive wildland firefighting responsibilities. He has a long history of sparring with public land management agencies, including the Forest Service itself. Josephine Creek Ranch is among his many property holdings. As Public Domain previously reported, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last year personally intervened in a dispute involving Josephine Creek Ranch and cattle grazing on federal public land.
Public Domain’s and High Country News’ discovery of the 2024 incident near Josephine Creek Ranch comes just weeks after The Washington Post reported that Michael Boren requested additional aircraft to fight a small fire this summer near another ranch he owns in the Sawtooth national recreation area. In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, three Democratic senators demanded an investigation and argued that his reported actions “constitute potentially a misuse of taxpayer funds and put American families at further risk by diverting scarce resources from high-priority wildfires threatening communities elsewhere in the region and country.”
A USDA spokesperson, in a statement to Public Domain and High Country News, said that Undersecretary Michael Boren “was not aware of his brother’s action at the time and he was only a non-operating minority owner of the Josephine Creek Ranch, additionally, the Ranch had no involvement in this fire and was not aware of it. The fire was not on Ranch property. The reporting from the Washington Post is not accurate.”
Steve Boren did not respond to multiple telephone calls and texts for comment.
Some 10 days after Steve Boren started the unpermitted fire on state land near Josephine Creek Ranch, it was still burning and, by October 10, 2024, had grown to roughly 5,000 acres, according to the state report. The federal government deployed firefighting resources to combat the blaze, including a Bureau of Land Management bulldozer operator. In a phone call with a state investigator on October 16, the report states, Steve Boren again indicated he was responsible for the fire but told investigators he had an “umbrella policy” and “was not concerned about being held responsible for suppression costs.” When an investigator asked him if he thought the Rosie Fire would reach the size that it did, Steve Boren responded, “Yeah, yeah. I mean we never get it to do this,” according to the report.
Josephine Creek Ranch includes a cattle grazing operation, and when investigators went to the ranch to question Boren he told them that he started the ignition in an “effort to restore grassland for cattle farming,” the report states. The state investigator informed Boren that there could be consequences for not having a burn permit. Josephine Creek Ranch holds leases to graze cattle on nearly 8,500 acres of adjacent state land, the report notes, and the investigator told Steve Boren that such leases “had a stipulation to follow all applicable laws which Boren affirmatively acknowledged by stating, ‘Yeah.’ Boren then said, ‘That’s my bad.’”
During one conversation with state authorities, Boren became what lead IDL investigator Scott Burnside described in his report as “more quarrelsome, and continued to reiterate the current fire was actually a benefit.”
“I told him this was not my focus, as I was concerned about the origin and cause of the fire,” Burnside continued in the report. “Boren then began to cite how the fire was a [sic] ‘A waste of taxpayer money.’ He also told me, ‘I have photos of them (firefighter) sleeping on their truck and guys smoking dope.’ He remained adamant the suppression efforts were a waste of time. He eventually paused, and I asked him, ‘So what if this fire is at 5000 acres and suddenly there is a wind event, and it blows up to 25,000 acres and somebody gets killed?’ Boren replied something to the effect of, ‘That’s a whole different story.’”
“Boren then began to cite how the fire was a [sic] ‘A waste of taxpayer money.’”
“Boren continued to indicate the fire, ‘Was nothing but good.’ He also started comment, ‘There are two lessons learned. One is to get a permit. Two, never cooperate with the government again.’ He continued by stating he would not allow government agents to have access through his gates. Boren commented this was to include, ‘Fish and game and [the Bureau of Land Management.’ He mentioned he has worked with Fish and Game on numerous projects in the past and ‘That would never happen again.’ Boren stated, ‘I was stabbed in the back.’ He told me this meant when he was first contacted by BLM to have ‘Two guys look at the fire.’ Boren told me he did not think they would take suppression action. He also commented the suppression crews did not listen to him and performed ineffective backfires, where all but one, ‘Jumped the line.’”
While no structures were damaged in the blaze, it forced two elk hunters to abandon their camp. When they returned the next day, they found much of their gear — a tent, sleeping bags, mattresses, chairs and hunting clothes — damaged or destroyed, according to the report.
“We are fortunate that we did not lose more, or get caught in the fire,” one of the hunters wrote in an Oct. 2 email to a sergeant of the Owyhee County Sheriff’s Office, which is included in the IDL report.
In a separate call with investigators in mid-October, Lance Okenson, a fuel management officer with the BLM in Boise, “adamantly denied telling Boren all he (Boren) was required to do before burning was to contact the [Boise Interagency Dispatch Center],” the report states.
It is unclear whether Steve Boren or Josephine Creek Ranch will face any consequences or financial penalties for the Rosie Fire.
Sharla Arledge, a spokesperson for the Idaho Department of Lands, told Public Domain and High Country News she was unable to provide additional information because “the fire investigation is still under active legal review.”
“It can take 2 to 3 years to compile the total cost for fire suppression, depending on the number of responding agencies,” Arledge said in an email.
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