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Firefighter health is a top priority in the new U.S. Wildland Fire Service. What could that mean?

Boise State Public Radio News | By Murphy Woodhouse
Published May 29, 2026 at 2:17 PM MDT
U.S. Wildland Fire Service Chief Brian Fennessy, pictured here when he was still head of the Orange County Fire Authority
Eric Thayer
/
Associated Press
U.S. Wildland Fire Service Chief Brian Fennessy, pictured here when he was still head of the Orange County Fire Authority

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. Cancer and other long-term health risks are growing concerns in wildland fire, but so too are the high mental health tolls the work takes.

Listen to learn about Fennessy’s personal experience with those challenges, and what he hopes to do about them at the head of the important new fire agency.
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Murphy Woodhouse
As Boise State Public Radio's Mountain West News Bureau reporter, I try to leverage my past experience as a wildland firefighter to provide listeners with informed coverage of a number of key issues in wildland fire. I’m especially interested in efforts to improve the famously challenging and dangerous working conditions on the fireline.
See stories by Murphy Woodhouse