In a workforce that has long been male-dominated with a “cowboy up” attitude, Todd Legler is trying to normalize discussions about mental health.
People are also reading… “These fires are very catastrophic in nature, going through towns and subdivisions,” Legler said, recalling the Dec. 30, 2021, Marshall fire in Colorado that destroyed 1,091 structures and damaged another 149 residences. “I couldn’t imagine what that would be like to lose your home over the holidays. Something on that scale can carry a lot of stress, whether we acknowledge it or not.
Survey saysA recent inquiry helped characterize the extent of the issues facing the nation’s 18,700 federal firefighters. “Folks do see or hear about a lot of trauma, and mental safety is just as important as physical safety,” he said. “I’m starting to notice our employees want this. Some almost crave this about mental health and recognize how important it is.”
A 2022 report by the Government Accountability Office cited seven barriers to the recruitment and retention of wildland firefighters: low pay, career advancement challenges, poor work-life balance, mental health challenges, remote or expensive duty stations, limited workforce diversity and hiring process challenges.
Legler serves as a team lead for a CISM response team. Although he receives many calls for his help, he said he limits himself to about five a year. Some of her own hotshot crew members were very frank in telling Duncan and her fellow female firefighters they shouldn’t be there. “Lots of the men were not stoked about having a female on the fire crew,” she said, and it wasn’t isolated to just older men. The feeling was expressed by younger men, as well, often in crude jokes or remarks.
PreseasonA lot of the mental health work Legler has done for the past five years from his base at the Shoshone National Forest is having pre-season talks with Forest Service firefighters — as well as state and other wildland crews — about how to recognize and deal with stress in an attempt to normalize the problem before issues grow larger.He also provides resources to meet challenging times, including a guide to direct discussions among firefighting families.
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