Firefighters

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.

At night, temperatures are often cooler and the air is wetter, which gives wildland firefighters a long window to make up significant ground when trying to suppress blazes. But that pattern is breaking down, a trend driven by human-caused climate change, according to a new study.

Growth has been strong over the last year despite a great deal of uncertainty last spring over the future of the ambitious effort.

It’s Friday, which means it's time for our Reporter Roundtable when Idaho Matters gets you up to date on all the news that made headlines this past week.

Earlier this year, the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer (NFR) went offline in the wake of massive layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services. But since restarting in May, enrollment has surged by roughly 8,000.

Two firefighters are dead and another injured after a shooter opened fire as they tried to put out a wildfire on Canfield Mountain in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

The city wants to expand more stations to four-person engine staffing, but there's no money for growth in the upcoming year's budget.

The National Firefighter Registry is perhaps the most ambitious effort to date to understand the connection between firefighting and cancer.

Boise Fire’s Station 5 is now in service after a grand opening on Friday Oct. 18. The new station is equipped with upgrades that aim to help the city reach its sustainable energy goals.

In a report to the Board of Land Commissioners, the head of the Fire Management said Idaho is struggling to hire enough firefighters for the upcoming wildfire season.