[The Guardian - A backfire to stop the Caldor fire near South Lake Tahoe. Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP.]
A sad 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.”
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