U.S. Wildland Fire Service

Firefighters will now be able to use N95 masks on the fireline – building on a more limited, voluntary rollout of masking that started last fall. There will also be expanded access to showers, time for routine gear cleaning and so-called “clean air recovery periods” that can limit other risks.

Following the burnover deaths of three wildland firefighters near the Utah-Colorado border last weekend, a top federal fire official has strong words of warning ahead of Independence Day – the single biggest day for human-started fires.

Low morale, staffing woes and health worries are among the top issues shared by hundreds of federal wildland firefighters who responded.

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.