‘I thought I was broken’: when wildland firefighters head home, trauma takes hold

31 December 2021

Published by https://www.theguardian.com/

USA – Asad Rahman woke up feeling like someone had punched him in the face. It was the winter after one of his first seasons as a wildland firefighter and he’d battled a blaze that had claimed the lives of six other firefighters. The stress left Rahman grinding his teeth at night until his jaw ached.

It would be years before Rahman could acknowledge the symptoms of strain. He’s not alone.

Now that another wildfire season has come and gone, firefighters who spent months in the trenches are returning home. Along with the familial problems caused by their prolonged absence and the financial stresses some will face during a season without work, the off-season can bring simmering mental health struggles to the surface.

Downtime away from the rush of firefighting and the camaraderie in the camps can be the perfect opportunity for stress to rear its head, says Rahman, who has spent 36 years in the field and now serves as a battalion chief for the Bureau of Land Management.

“We are in this work-mode and we are adrenaline junkies and it is really hard to come down,” Rahman says. “You’re under so much constant danger all summer that your system is on a constant state of alert. And it’s a crash when you come off of that – an absolute crash.”

The cumulative effects of the perilous and prolonged assignments show up in higher rates of alcohol abuse, divorce and sleep deprivation. First responders are also 10 times more likely to contemplate or attempt suicide than the general public and mental health-related deaths now outpace line of duty fatalities. But for years, the toll trauma takes on first responders has been buried behind a culture of stoicism that’s persisted in the profession.

Over the last three decades, Rahman has faced more danger, more fatalities, more fear and the relentless trauma of bearing witness to the devastation wildfires leave in their wake. But “it was always, suck it up and go forward. Just rub some dirt on it and keep going”, he says.

It comes at an enormous cost. Six of Rahman’s friends have died by suicide. They are among thousands of first responders who struggled silently under the building pressure as fires become more frequent, more dangerous and more difficult to contain, adding a devastating new dimension to an already taxing line of work.

Pressures of being a public ‘hero’

After two consecutive record-breaking seasons sandwiching the Covid crisis, Dr Mynda Ohs, a mental health clinician who works with first responders, is concerned that this winter could be one of the worst for mental health. “As soon as we settle down and they can come out of work brain – oh man”, she says. “It’s going to hit.”

Ohs has spent years working with wildland firefighters, but she also knows their plight from personal experience. Her husband and son both work in the field. In 2020, her husband was deployed for 61 straight days. “He came home and he was a shell of a man,” she says. It took months before he started acting like himself.

“The off-season can be very difficult for first responders,” says Jeff Dill, a former fire captain who founded the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance, an organization dedicated to helping emergency workers navigate the emerging mental health crises in their field.

Dill cites what he refers to as “cultural brainwashing” – the public’s reliance on a hero narrative that diminishes firefighter vulnerability and reinforces the stigma many feel about seeking help – as a key obstacle to creating more openness around the issue.

The result has been deadly.

Dill tracks the rising suicide toll on firefighters and EMT crew members, a grim tally that previously went uncounted. He validates the numbers himself and coordinates support groups for loved ones grappling with the loss. So far this year, 81 firefighters and EMT workers have been counted. Between 2015 and 2020, his counts included 818 men and women. Dill believes his data only reflects about 65% of the actual number.

“We do it to remember them but also to understand the reasons why,” he said, adding that “these are not numbers – these are the faces and names of my brothers and sisters and the families that they left behind.”

He’s found that ruptures in family relationships after long assignments is a top trigger. “[Wildland firefighters] are gone for months and when they come back they are strangers.”

A hard job that’s only getting worse

Tony Martinez, a Cal Fire captain who has spent 28 years working for the state agency, said the work has undergone a profound change in recent years. The intensity of the modern fire season, combined with a continuous crunch on resources, has created a cycle that both creates more strain and drives people away from the profession.

“I have people telling me they don’t ever want to go on another fire again – and these are guys who are only a third of the way through their career,” he says. “From the things they have seen, close calls, stress of being on duty for weeks and months on end, and worried about if their family will still be there or not – that was never a thing before.”

That’s also why Martinez, who comes from a family of public servants, says he hopes his two teenage sons will break with tradition. “We have a major mental health issue right now,” he adds. “I only see that as the weeks and months and years go by, that increase – and I don’t think the public has any idea.”

A federal wildland firefighter, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution from his employer said he’s considered ending his career, mostly because of the impact it has on his young family. “You come home, after being gone for two or three weeks and it’s a dumpster fire at your own house,” he said. “Everyone is stressed out, my kids haven’t seen me, I am stressed out, my wife is stressed out because she’s been a single working mom – it just gets to the point where it’s not worth it for me to go on these fires.”

Federal firefighters rely on hazard and overtime pay to supplement their small wages and survive through the off-season and that, he said, also incentivizes crews to push past their limits. Colleagues have refused care, declined important surgeries, and denied themselves the rest and recuperation they need.

“In the last five-10 years the fires have gotten so much more intense,” he said. “And you couple that with the low pay and the low staffing – now people just can’t afford to do the job. It’s so stressful.” Federal agencies, including the US Forest Service have struggled to retain qualified candidates and with each new empty seat, the strain grows.

A wakeup call and push for solutions

Officials are beginning to heed the call. Joe Biden oversaw temporary pay-increases to ensure no firefighter made less than $15 an hour. The $1tn infrastructure bill also includes language to permanently increase salaries, improve job titles, minimize hazards and establish essential mental health programs. Separate legislation, passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2022, grants federal firefighters housing stipends and funds programs that provide peer-support, stress management, mental health leave, and mental health professionals with trauma expertise.

Advocates still want to expand on these improvements and ensure that the changes will stick. Another bill – named Tim’s Act for Tim Hart, a smokejumper who died fighting a blaze in New Mexico this year – aims to go further. The act, introduced in October, includes provisions to guarantee mental health leave, create career transition funds and expand stress management programs that have been successful at helping first responders cope.

For Hart’s wife, Michelle, the issues tackled by the bill are extremely personal. She witnessed Tim push himself through pain and fatigue to do one of the most dangerous jobs – parachuting into fires too difficult to reach from the ground – in order to earn enough overtime and hazard pay to get through the off-season.

“You can tell them until you are blue in the face that they have to take classes about mental health and recognize depression and suicidal tendencies in their friends and co-workers and utilize the programs – but if they know that their family’s welfare is dependent on them getting 1,000 hours of overtime, there is no way in hell they are going to take a break,” said Michelle.

That’s why this year was supposed to be Tim’s final year as a firefighter. He and Michelle were going to start a family, but that dream ended on 2 June. Michelle got the call she had always dreaded and rushed to be by her husband’s side as he was airlifted to a hospital. Tim didn’t look like himself. His face was swollen. His leg was badly broken. Staples tracked across his head.

“The way I recognized it was him was his feet were out,” Michelle said through sobs. “It was the only part of his body that still looked like him, that wasn’t broken and swollen. His perfectly pale, baby-soft feet, because they were always in socks.”

Tim spent nine days in the hospital before he was taken off life support. Michelle was there with him, holding his hand and stroking his head.

“It’s important for people to understand how hard this is – and that it’s not just me,” says Michelle, who has since committed to preserving her husband’s legacy by pushing for systemic change. “This is happening to the people who are putting their lives on the line for their country.”

Asad Rahman, the battalion chief, is also heartened that, along with the legislative changes, the stigma is starting to shift. While he’s continued to fight fires, for the last 15 years he’s been part of a peer support network designed to foster the trust needed to help firefighters heal. He now serves as a lead.

He likened the agencies to a big ship, one that’s difficult to turn, but expressed hope that the culture is changing. The US Forest Service, which employs more than 10,000 firefighters, has brought on clinicians trained in trauma counseling. The Bureau of Land Management, the agency Rahman works for, has initiated pre-season discussions with its wildland firefighters in order to encourage a culture of openness.

“People who had years and years of trauma are now getting the tools they need to live normal lives,” he says. Mindfulness, meditation and connections to clinicians who specialize in working with firefighters have been game-changers, Rahman says, adding that he’s hopeful everyone – from rookies to retirees – will receive better trauma training.

Rahman has benefited from the shift himself. Five years ago he was diagnosed with PTSD – 31 years after he’d started his career. Now, as he prepares to retire in the new year, he credits the culture-change with saving his life and is excited about his future away from fire.

“I get emotional thinking about it because it was a turn of the tide to have that support and to know that your feelings – the anger, the rage, the frustration, the hurt, depression – all of that was a normal response to what you encountered,” he says. “I didn’t know it was normal. I thought I was broken.”

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