Firefighter health is a top priority in the new U.S. Wildland Fire Service. What could that mean?

The Mountain West News Bureau’s wildfire reporter Murphy Woodhouse recently spoke at length with Chief Brian Fennessy, the inaugural head of the Department of Interior’s U.S. Wildland Fire Service.

A major theme of their conversation was firefighter health and well-being. Cancer and other long-term health risks are growing concerns in wildland fire, but so too are the high mental health tolls the work takes.