A smoldering threat to wildland firefighters

[mahatmakanejeeves]

COVID19

A smoldering threat to wildland firefighters

Long COVID affects more than 16 million Americans, and firefighters are at increased risk of getting it.

Miles W. Griffis
Image credit: Rebecca Stumpf/High Country News
Oct. 1, 2022 | From the print edition

The heat was in the triple digits when Lea Bossler and her U.S. Forest Service engine crew reached the blaze unfurling in a canyon outside Nogales, Arizona. As she trekked up a hill with her shovel-like rhino tool, flaming barrel cacti tumbled down the slope, igniting more parched fuels along the way. Despite the heat, a 45-pound pack and little sleep, Bossler felt strong and capable, mopping up the edges of the fire, extinguishing collapsed cactuses that smoldered like burnt rubber. This was her third season as a wildland firefighter, and she was well on her way to fulfilling her goal of becoming an incident commander.

Editor’s note: This story contains a graphic description relating to the loss of a child.

After the fire was contained, Bossler and her crew drove home to Missoula, Montana, concluding a two-week roll in the Southwest. It was early July 2020, the middle of a record-breaking fire season that would burn over 10 million acres across the country, and Bossler was resting before her next assignment. There was a coronavirus outbreak at her partner’s workplace, and just a couple of days after she came home, she caught a debilitating case of COVID-19. Now, more than two years later, the 32-year-old still hasn’t recovered. Long COVID has not only damaged her health, it has also forced her to give up her career in firefighting.

Currently, over 19 million people in the United States — 1 in 13 adults — are living with long COVID, though some estimates place the number as high as 23 million. Long COVID is a complex condition that affects all age groups and can involve multiple organ systems. It’s diagnosed weeks or months after a COVID-19 infection. Some of the symptoms include cognitive dysfunction, respiratory and cardiovascular problems and extreme fatigue, though roughly 200 other symptoms are recognized, and some can linger for years. Many patients meet the diagnostic criteria for other diagnoses, as well. Those include postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, which causes extreme dizziness, headaches and rapid heart-rate; and myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) — sometimes called chronic fatigue syndrome — a disabling neurological disease that has been underfunded for decades.

{snip photo}

A World Health Organization official recently warned that repeated infections may increase the risk of long COVID. A recent U.S. Census Bureau survey analyzed by the National Center for Health Statistics showed that as many as 1 in 5 adults who were infected with COVID-19 now have symptoms of long COVID.

While the number of U.S. wildland firefighters affected is unknown, the workforce is considered at high risk of contracting COVID-19: In 2021, the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths in wildland firefighters was COVID-19. Firefighters are already stretched thin due to the prolonged and intensified fire seasons caused by climate change. Long COVID is not only affecting firefighters’ health and livelihoods, it could also seriously hamper their response to the escalating crisis.

{snip}

This story was supported by the journalism nonprofit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Miles W. Griffis is an independent journalist based in Los Angeles, California. We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at [e-mail] or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.

BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT

Wildland firefighters are risking their mental health

As climate change lengthens fire seasons, will the government do enough to protect them?

Mark Betancourt
Image credit: Michael Hanson
June 29, 2020 | From the print edition

{snip}