From the Yakima Herald: Kittitas County (Wash.) Fire District No. 8 is asking a U.S. District Court judge in Yakima to allow it to plow a 1,500-foot stretch of road leading to its station.

The Forest Service maintains the area the station is in as a system of groomed recreational trails and closes the access road in the winter. Forest Service officials, backed by recreation enthusiasts, said that mixing full-size vehicles and snowmobiles would be unsafe. Accordingly, they don't allow the road to be plowed.

This isn't the first time the fire district has filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service. For the first couple of years after the station was built, firefighters reached it via a back road that cut across private, state and federal land. In 2008, the Forest Service blocked the path with boulders, calling it "an illegal road." The fire district filed a federal lawsuit in 2009, and a judge ordered the two parties to find a solution.

The new lawsuit could drag on for a year or more, but the fire district plans to seek an injunction that will allow firefighters access this year. Read the entire article here.