U.S. Wildland Fire Service

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.

“Suppression is always going to be there,” Chief Brian Fennessy told the Mountain West News Bureau. “But we're not going to suppress our way out of this situation.”

It would be called the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, according to budget documents from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior. The agency would consolidate the wildland fire programs of the USDA and Interior within the latter.