firefighter health Archives - Page 5 of 23

Wildland firefighters’ silent crisis

Bill GabbertAugust 17, 2021Uncategorizedfirefighter health, mental health, suicide14 Comments

Bighorn Fire, night ops in Summerhaven. Coronado NF, Arizona. Photo by David Melendez, June 23, 2020.

Today The Guardian published a well-researched article written by Daliah Singer about stresses the 20,000 wildland firefighters face on the job, including mental health issues. Here is an excerpt from “Burning out: the silent crisis spreading among wildland firefighters.”

“ ‘The exposure to human suffering in the last three years is not something you’d see at a typical day of work at firefighting – entire communities destroyed, loss of human life, loss of wildlife, loss of the landscape that we treasure. That’s not what wildland firefighters signed up to do, but it’s what they’re exposed to,” says Nelda St Clair, who worked in wildland fire for 40 years and is now the national critical incident stress management program manager for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

“Mental struggles can become more acute in the offseason, when firefighters lose their connections to their crews and transition from rigorous schedules to quieter lives.

“ ‘[Wildland firefighters] have more risk than the average firefighter because of social disconnection,” says Thomas Joiner, a psychology professor at Florida State University and one of the country’s foremost experts on suicide. A recent study by his team included a sample of wildland firefighters – just 20 individuals – and found that 55% of them reported clinically significant suicidal symptoms compared with 32% of non-wildland firefighters.

“Dr Patricia O’Brien, a clinical psychologist and former hotshot – an intensely trained firefighter working directly on fire lines – expanded those results with a survey of more than 2,500 current and former wildland firefighters. Her early data, which is not yet peer-reviewed or published, shows that rates of self-reported probable depression, generalized anxiety disorder and PTSD, as well as past-year suicidal ideation, past-month binge drinking, heavy alcohol use and smokeless tobacco use were all two to 10 times more prevalent among wildland firefighters than the general public.”

(end of excerpt)

The article refers to research conducted by former hotshot Dr. Patricia o’Brien. Here is an excerpt from the abstract of her work.

“Wildland firefighters in the sample reported relatively high rates of probable depression (17.3%), probable generalized anxiety disorder (12.8%), probable PTSD (13.7%), past year suicidal ideation (20.1%), past-month binge drinking (57%), heavy alcohol use (22%) and smokeless tobacco use (36.9%). These rates were 2-10 times higher than rates typically seen among the general public. Further, data showed a disparity between the prevalence of depression and PTSD identified by the study screening measures and the rates at which participants reported having been diagnosed by a healthcare provider. Finally, wildland firefighters in the study reported exposures to a variety of stressful events. Results of the study provide preliminary research data suggesting that wildland firefighters may be at greater risk of developing mental health conditions than the general public, and that a significant proportion of those conditions are under-detected and under-treated. Findings highlight the need for health surveillance and evidence-based health promotion and illness/injury prevention program development for wildland firefighters, particularly in psychological and behavioral health domains.”

Help is available for those feeling really depressed or suicidal.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255. Online Chat.
Anonymous assistance from the Wildland Firefighter Foundation: 208-336-2996.
National Wildland Fire and Aviation Critical Incident Stress Management Website.
Code Green Campaign, a first responder oriented mental health advocacy organization.
Would you rather communicate with a counselor by text? If you are feeling really depressed or suicidal, a crisis counselor will TEXT with you. The Crisis Text Line runs a free service. Just text: 741-741

Smoke linked to thousands of COVID-19 cases on West Coast

Bill GabbertAugust 13, 2021Uncategorizedfirefighter health, smoke14 Comments

More than half of the 22 coronavirus fatalities in Calaveras County, CA were tied to smoke

Satellite photo, wildfires, — As the sun begins to set on the west coast, gray smoke from wildfires can be easily distinguished from white clouds. NOAA, GOES 17.

From the San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 13, 2021

The presence of wildfire smoke last year during the pandemic may have been responsible for at least 19,000 additional coronavirus cases on the West Coast, and 700 subsequent deaths, a new study shows.

The study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, offers the most detailed accounting yet of how the devastating 2020 wildfire season is believed to have amplified the coronavirus outbreak. It traces increases in infections to periods of smoke in more than 50 counties in California, Oregon and Washington.

While a correlation between wildfire smoke and COVID-19 doesn’t prove causation, the study’s authors say the tie is no coincidence. Plenty of research since the start of the pandemic has suggested that exposure to smoke’s primary unhealthy component PM 2.5, which refers to particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers in size or smaller, compromises people’s immunity and increases susceptibility to COVID-19. Scientists also hypothesize that the virus may be spread by the particles.

The team’s models crunched coronavirus numbers in 92 counties during non-smokey periods from March 15 to Dec. 16 and how these numbers changed when wildfire smoke brought particulate pollution. The area that the researchers examined covered 95% of the population in California, Oregon and Washington. They excluded areas that did not have sufficient data for modeling.

Willdfire smoke exposure linked to increased risk of contracting COVID-19

BillJuly 30, 2021Uncategorizedfirefighter health, smoke4 Comments

A new study finds a 17.7 percent rise in COVID-19 cases after a prolonged 2020 wildfire smoke event in Reno, Nev.

Lava Fire, pyrocumulus at 1:42 p.m. June 28, 2021.

By Kelsey Fitzgerald

Wildfire smoke may greatly increase susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to new research from the Center for Genomic Medicine at the Desert Research Institute (DRI), Washoe County Health District (WCHD), and Renown Health (Renown) in Reno, Nevada.

In a study published earlier this week in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, the DRI-led research team set out to examine whether smoke from 2020 wildfires in the Western U.S. was associated with an increase in SARS-CoV-2 infections in Reno.

To explore this, the study team used models to analyze the relationship between fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) from wildfire smoke and SARS-CoV-2 test positivity rate data from Renown Health, a large, integrated healthcare network serving Nevada, Lake Tahoe, and northeast California. According to their results, PM 2.5 from wildfire smoke was responsible for a 17.7 percent increase in the number of COVID-19 cases that occurred during a period of prolonged smoke that took place between Aug. 16 and Oct. 10, 2020.

smoke forecast — During the time of the study, a map showed the forecast for the distribution of near-surface wildfire smoke at 6 p.m. MDT August 23, 2020. RealEarth.

“Our results showed a substantial increase in the COVID-19 positivity rate in Reno during a time when we were affected by heavy wildfire smoke from California wildfires,” said Daniel Kiser, M.S., co-lead author of the study and assistant research scientist of data science at DRI. “This is important to be aware of as we are already confronting heavy wildfire smoke from the Beckwourth Complex fire and with COVID-19 cases again rising in Nevada and other parts of the Western U.S.”

Reno, located in Washoe County (population 450,000) of northern Nevada, was exposed to higher concentrations of PM2.5 for longer periods of time in 2020 than other nearby metropolitan areas, including San Francisco. Reno experienced 43 days of elevated PM2.5 during the study period, as opposed to 26 days in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“We had a unique situation here in Reno last year where we were exposed to wildfire smoke more often than many other areas, including the Bay Area,” said Gai Elhanan, M.D., co-lead author of the study and associate research scientist of computer science at DRI. “We are located in an intermountain valley that restricts the dispersion of pollutants and possibly increases the magnitude of exposure, which makes it even more important for us to understand smoke impacts on human health.”

Kiser’s and Elhanan’s new research builds upon past work of studies in San Francisco and Orange County by controlling for additional variables such as the general prevalence of the virus, air temperature, and the number of tests administered, in a location that was heavily impacted by wildfire smoke.

“We believe that our study greatly strengthens the evidence that wildfire smoke can enhance the spread of SARS-CoV-2,” said Elhanan. “We would love public health officials across the U.S. to be a lot more aware of this because there are things we can do in terms of public preparedness in the community to allow people to escape smoke during wildfire events.”

More information:

Additional study authors include William Metcalf (DRI), Brendan Schnieder (WCHD), and Joseph Grzymski, a corresponding author (DRI/Renown). This research was funded by Renown Health and the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development Coronavirus Relief Fund.

The full text of the study, “SARS-CoV-2 test positivity rate in Reno, Nevada: association with PM2.5 during the 2020 wildfire smoke events in the western United States,” is available from the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-021-00366-w

A brief look — wildland firefighter smoke exposure and risk of lung and cardiovascular disease

Bill GabbertJune 11, 2021Uncategorizedfirefighter health, smoke, smoke & health9 Comments

Here is a very brief look at the effects of smoke on wildland firefighters, and below that, a longer look, in the embedded four-page .pdf document.

By Kathleen M. Navarro, U.S. Forest Service
(currently with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Wildland firefighters are exposed to health hazards including inhaling hazardous pollutants from the combustion of live and dead vegetation (smoke), and breathing in ash and soil dust, while working long shifts with no respiratory protection. This research brief summarizes a study estimating long-term health impacts of smoke exposure for wildland firefighters (Navarro et al. 2019). The study estimated relative risk of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality from existing particulate matter (PM) exposure-response relationships using a measured PM concentration from smoke and breathing rates from previous wildland firefighter studies across different exposure scenarios.

Key Findings:

Firefighters who worked both short and long seasons (49 days and 98 days per year, respectively) were exposed to increased lifetime doses of PM4 across all career durations (5-25 years).
Wildland firefighters were estimated to be at increased risk of lung cancer (8 to 43 percent) and cardiovascular disease (16 to 30 percent) mortality across all season lengths and career durations.
These findings suggest that wildland firefighters should reduce exposure to smoke in any way possible.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/NRFSN_ResearchBrief7_FirefighterSmokeExposure_HealthRisk_2020_final.pdf” title=”wildland Firefighter Smoke Exposure Health Risk2020″]

For more information: Smoke — and the health of firefighters

Let’s be careful out there.

Fight fire aggressively, having provided for mental health first

BillMay 19, 2021May 19, 2021Uncategorizedfirefighter health, mental health12 Comments

American Elk prescribed fire Wind Cave National Park — A firefighter ignites the American Elk prescribed fire in Wind Cave National Park, October 20, 2010. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

By Anonymous

Note: For the purposes of this article and ease of language I will be referring to “forestry technicians” (our official job title) as “wildland firefighters.” I and many of my cohort strongly identify with the latter classification.

I am a federal wildland firefighter experiencing mental health issues. It doesn’t matter who I am, where I work, or what my demographics are because there are many like me. In the middle of my career, neither fresh nor wise, I am facing some tough questions. By explaining my perspective I hope to shed light on this worsening epidemic. Maybe my experience will encourage people to check in on their employees, peers, family or friends in fire. Perhaps with the countless other stories coming out these days policy-makers will listen and start to adjust their tactics.

There have been bad fire seasons before; I’ve worked too many hours with unpleasant people, had tyrant bosses, and experienced a smattering of sexual harassment. There was Yarnell. I’ve weathered it all not with grace but with sheer tenacity. Of course I’ve made my share of mistakes, talked back when I should have kept my mouth shut, kept my mouth shut when I should have spoken up, but I consider myself an average federal employee in this regard. I’m good at my job and maintain a high level of passion for it.

In all honesty I’ve struggled with mental health in some form most of my life. I do not believe this invalidates my experience or the responsibility of the agency to recognize its problems. Certainly the all-or-nothing seasonal nature and high levels of true stress don’t help and even augment mental health issues. Lack of commensurate pay and benefits take their toll on morale as well. A global pandemic, amplified racial tensions, and drastic climate change contribute to the daily anxiety of most people whether they are in fire or not. Our issues are not unique but they are perhaps amplified, and with more potential for danger. In any case here I am now, taking leave from a job I mostly love and mostly need to get by.

I’m convinced my first season on a hotshot crew saved my life. This occupation has provided me structure, financial stability, and camaraderie. In return it has asked of me integrity and accountability. I spent the whole winter before that first season with dark ideas permeating my thoughts. Somehow, two weeks before critical I snapped out of it enough to show up and not quit. It was a tough start but I caught up and halfway through the summer I was walking around laughing with a saw on my back.

Currently it’s as if the dark portion of my mind that usually takes up 5%-20% has almost completely taken over. This part of my brain wants to break me down, call myself an imposter, and ultimately kill me. I am in sink or swim mode; I am trying to save my own life this time. It became clear as the season drew closer that I was not mentally prepared to be the high-functioning firefighter I usually am. I chose to draw back and focus on my personal life rather than risk becoming a liability on the job.

So often we think of our “work life” and “personal life” as being distinct and separate entities. I would like to express that this mentality is highly detrimental to the lives of employees. We cannot adequately perform our duties when there is such a rift between what we ask of firefighters and what we provide to them. Keeping your personal life separate is an old-guard means of avoidance. It also denies the possibility that our two lives can actually intertwine and complement each other. If we talk about the “fire family” and supporting our people, we cannot ignore the high numbers of individuals currently struggling.

In my fight against mental illness I am extremely and perhaps rarely privileged to have a supervisor who convinced me not to resign. I am further lucky that this person’s bosses trust them to make this call. Maintaining my health insurance is proving critical to my efforts at achieving wellness. This time off is not without consequence for me. First and most obviously, I am experiencing a drastic reduction in my usual income without roughly 1000 hours of overtime to bank on. I will miss out on months of on-the-job training and the professional development and networking that happens so fluidly in the field. Thus far my fancy federal health benefits have fallen short as my insurance company keeps rejecting my doctor’s efforts to get me the treatments I need. More personally still, I carry guilt and shame from not showing up this season, including a sense of failure from not exercising my skills and attributes alongside my coworkers.

One of my greatest fears when I consider my anticipated return to work is that people will find out. They will know I cracked. They may lose trust in my abilities; they may invalidate my strengths in light of my weaknesses. What will future potential supervisors say when they see I took an extended absence during what is sure to be a busy year in fire? I feel the weight of every destructive incident on my back, and I feel comfortable asserting that this is a common feeling. I do not however possess the mental capacity right now to worry about all that. I have made the selfish but necessary call to choose myself in this battle.

Droughts are deepening, climates are changing, and we always seem to work short-handed. If I am not alone in my mental health crisis, which I am not, how will we continue to effectively manage increasingly larger and more disastrous fires? I would argue that we should not go another shift without providing the support our people need. We must allow our wildland firefighters to show vulnerability in the face of so much global chaos, and seek to do the actual work it takes to remedy this. Furthermore, we need to collectively fight the deep-rooted professional and cultural stigma around mental health. Just as if it were a catastrophic fire we must fight aggressively and with great urgency.

Note from Bill:

Help is available for those feeling really depressed.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255. Online Chat.
Anonymous assistance from the Wildland Firefighter Foundation: 208-336-2996.
National Wildland Fire and Aviation Critical Incident Stress Management Website.
Code Green Campaign, a first responder oriented mental health advocacy organization.
A new organization, Fire Mind, will be dedicated to helping wildland firefighters and expects to be fully operational by June 30, 2021.
Would you rather communicate with a counselor by text? If you are feeling really depressed or suicidal, a crisis counselor will TEXT with you. The Crisis Text Line runs a free service. Just text: 741-741

Wildland firefighters and mental health

Bill GabbertMay 18, 2021Uncategorizedfirefighter health, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, mental health2 Comments

Grassroots Wildland Firefighters issues a statement during Mental Health Awareness Month

Smoke column from the Williams Fork Fire in CO, Aug. 22, 2020. USFS photo.

Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a new, very active, and increasingly relevant organization has released a statement about mental health:

Mental Health Awareness Month – Time to Shed Light on Federal Wildland Firefighters Most Urgent Challenge

Greater than the acres of treasured forest lands lost, more valuable than any one residential home or business, more challenging than the most complex of wildfire incidents is the challenge of addressing the mental health crisis currently facing the firefighting community. In the Fall of 2019, six current and former federal wildland firefighters came together to discuss and identify what they believed to be major issues plaguing wildland firefighters. Determined to create lasting reforms, they developed solutions critical to protecting and advancing the health and wellness of the men and women who dedicate their lives to such a critical public service.

Mental Health and Wellness is truly at the core of what drives the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters (GRWFF) mission, and they remain steadfast to serve, protect, and support our sisters and brothers; our family.

We’re all here today because we’ve experienced loss in one form or another. We have lost friends in the line of duty. We have lost friends to suicide. We have lost friends to cancer after a lifetime of firefighting. We have buried our friends and colleagues. We have had close calls on the line that shake us to our core. We have responded to medical incidents that involve one of our own. We re-live and revisit these traumatic events never to be forgotten no matter how hard we try to put them aside. We struggle to reconnect with our partners, our children, and our loved ones after being absent from their lives for months on end; missing birthdays, anniversaries and knowing cherished moments are lost. We have struggled with our own demons. We have felt alone.

The Grassroot Wildland Firefighters are here today because of our shared experiences and the invisible bonds we develop. You are not alone. We are listening, and we hear you.

The members of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters have had the honor and privilege to work in a multitude of positions within the wildland fire community. These experiences have provided our lives purpose, a sense of duty, and incredible opportunity. But it is the extraordinary people with whom we’ve shared these experiences and the lifelong connections we created that have had the largest and most lasting impacts on our lives. They are our brothers and our sisters; they are our family. But deep connections often come at a high cost. And so, when our fire family members are struggling or taken from us too soon, the impact and loss can be immense and often crippling.

The increase in public demand and expectations placed on Wildland Firefighters to respond to ever larger and more intense wildfires is far from abating, and, as a matter of fact, is expected to exponentially increase in the coming years. Our federal Wildland Firefighter workforce is currently experiencing a major decline in frontline fire experience, advanced leadership qualifications, and severe staffing shortages not seen in recent memory.

Coming out of a pandemic during one of the worst fire seasons in history puts us in a position of incredible stress and strain on our personal mental health and wellness. The physical fire environment is outpacing our ability to think and act creatively. For our federal wildland fire workforce, we are outmatched and outpaced with the social and political demands that are expected of us. This places an untenable burden on the federal wildland firefighting response community. The GRWFF recognizes this burden impacts not only us, but the partners and families we leave behind.

We are reaching out to our fire family during Mental Health Awareness Month to reaffirm our commitment to the wildland fire community. As we progress as an organization, so too does our commitment to the comprehensive Health and Wellbeing of our federal fire workforce.

As the GRWFF Comprehensive Health and Wellbeing subcommittee gathers data and research on the topic of mental health, we also continue to develop our resources page on the GRWFF website. We are working with several other non-governmental organizations to provide data, research, stories, and resources to help raise awareness and propose much needed reforms.

We recognize these problems are complex, but we are committed to identifying the true source of these issues and developing and implementing real solutions through legislative efforts to further support our fire family. We are all in this together.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: