Wildland Firefighters Are Risking Their Mental Health

An hour or so before dawn in late July 2015, just south of the California-Oregon border, Danny Brown turned off the highway into the Modoc National Forest and headed toward a menacing glow of flames to the west. As he drove through a labyrinth of dirt logging roads, the smoke thickened in the beams of his headlights. At 46, Brown had been a wildland firefighter with the Bureau of Land Management for 14 seasons. He was a leader, reliable and steady. Within hours, all of that would change.