Editor’s note: This piece discusses suicide and mental health problems among wildland fire dispatchers.
LIGHTNING STRIKES in a dry forest and starts a wildfire. It’s a hot, windy day, and the embers quickly spread. Smoke rises, and it’s detected, sometimes by satellites, lookouts or people who call 911. Reports bombard an interagency dispatch center: There’s a new start, and it needs firefighting resources, fast.
The wildland fire dispatchers who respond are a critical link in the fast-moving series of decisions needed to begin battling a blaze. When a fire sparks, they’re the ones responsible for figuring out who’s nearby to fight it, and sending resources where they need to be as quickly as possible. “A good dispatcher is makeor-break if you want to keep a small fire small,” said Rachel Granberg, a wildland firefighter in Washington. (Granberg asked to keep her employer private because she could lose her job for identifying it in the media.)
When a new blaze needs air tankers and helicopters dropping retardant and
