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Wildland firefighters must be able to maintain situational awareness to ensure their safety. Crew members, including lookouts and crew building handlines, rely on visibility to assess risk and communicate changing conditions. Geographic information…
Author(s): Katherine A. Mistick, Philip E. Dennison, Michael J. Campbell, Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published:

Critical to effective fire management is the protection and preparedness of highly trained wildland firefighters who routinely face extreme physical and psychological demands. To date, there is limited scientific evidence of psychosocial education…
Author(s): Caleb Leduc, Sabir I. Giga, Ian J. Fletcher, Michelle Young, Sandra C. Dorman
Year Published:

As the wildland–urban interface continues to expand into fire prone areas, future wildfires will likely result in the burning of more built structures, such as the recent Marshall Fire in Colorado, which increases the complexity of the wildfire…
Author(s): Alice Gilliland, Tim Watkins
Year Published:

Wildland fire management is a complex system with various scales, modes, plans, and operations. As with any system, fire management can be subject to stresses and strains that are, in some cases, easy to identify in isolation but highly challenging…
Author(s): Nicholas McCarthy, David E. Calkin
Year Published:

Background:Exposure to inhaled smoke, pollutants, volatile organic compounds, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the firefighting environment has been associated with detrimental respiratory and cardiovascular effects, making firefighters a…
Author(s): Catherine Vanchiere, Rithika Thirumal, Aditya Hendrani, Parinita Dherange, Angela Bennett, Runhua Shi, Rakesh Gopinathannair, Brian Olshansky, Denise L. Smith, Paari Dominic
Year Published:

Falling trees and tree fragments are one of the top five causes of fatalities for wildland fire responders. In six out of ten recent years, at least one fatality from a tree strike has occurred while a fire responder was on duty, and others were…
Author(s): Karen L. Riley, Christopher D. O’Connor, Christopher J. Dunn, Jessica R. Haas, Richard D. Stratton, Benjamin Gannon
Year Published:

Exposure to oscillating heat fluxes while having variable water contents in the thermal protective clothing (T.P.C) is possible in a real firefighting scenario. The occurrence of steam burns becomes inevitable in certain conditions which are still…
Author(s): André Fonseca Malaquias, S.F. Neves, J.B.L.M. Campos
Year Published:

Objectives: Due to accelerating wildland fire activity, there is mounting urgency to understand, prevent, and mitigate the occupational health impacts associated with wildland fire suppression. The objectives of this review of academic and grey…
Author(s): Erica Koopmans, Katie Cornish, Trina Fyfe, Katherine Bailey, Chelsea A. Pelletier
Year Published:

Objectives: The increase in global wildland fire activity has accelerated the urgency to understand health risks associated with wildland fire suppression. The aim of this project was to identify occupational health research priorities for wildland…
Author(s): Chelsea A. Pelletier, Christopher Ross, Katherine Bailey, Trina Fyfe, Katie Cornish, Erica Koopmans
Year Published:

At a fundamental level, smoke from wildland fire is of scientific concern because of its potential adverse effects on human health and social well-being. Although many impacts (e.g., evacuations, property loss) occur primarily in proximity to the…
Author(s): Sarah M. McCaffrey, Ana G. Rappold, Mary Clare Hano, Kathleen M. Navarro, Tanya F. Phillips, Jeffrey P. Prestemon, Ambarish Vaidyanathan, Karen L. Abt, Colleen Reid, Jason D. Sacks
Year Published:

Wildland firefighters continue to die in the line of duty. Flammable landscapes intersect with bold but good-intentioned doers and trigger entrapment—a situation where personnel is unexpectedly caught in fire behaviour-related, life-threatening…
Author(s): Kelsy E. Gibos, Kyle Fitzpatrick, Scott Elliott
Year Published:

The COVID-19 global pandemic created dramatic change in nearly every facet of life, including how the Forest Service worked to fulfill its mission despite facing multiple unknowns fraught with risks. Preparing for and responding to wildland fire…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson, Donald G. MacGregor, David E. Calkin, Joel O. Iverson
Year Published:

Wildland fire suppression presents a working environment that often exceeds an energy expenditure of 20 MJ/day. Despite high levels of chronic physical exertion, we have noted maladaptive alterations in adiposity and blood lipids in a small cohort…
Author(s): Alejandro M. Rosales, Patrick S. Dodds, Walter S. Hailes, Joseph A. Sol, R.H. Coker, John C. Quindry, Brent Ruby
Year Published:

Firefighting is a mentally and physically demanding profession which is compounded by poor sleep due to shift schedules commonly used by fire departments. Compared to other professions, firefighters are at high risk for musculoskeletal injuries,…
Author(s): Chris Frost, Mike Toczko, Justin J. Merrigan, Joel R. Martin
Year Published:

Purpose: To understand the association between heart rate variability and indices of fatigue, total sleep time, and reaction time in shift workers. Methods:Ten participants from the British Columbia Wildfire Service management team were examined…
Author(s): Andrew T. Jeklin, Andrew S. Perrotta, Hugh W. Davies, Shannon S. D. Bredin, Dion A. Paul, Darren E. R. Warburton
Year Published:

Objective:To identify physiologic stressors related to cardiovascular disease via changes in metabolic, inflammatory, and oxidative stress biomarkers during 2 weeks of preseason training in wildland firefighters (WLFFs). Methods:Participants were…
Author(s): Shae Gurney, Katherine Christison, Cassie M. Williamson-Reisdorph, Joseph A. Sol, Tiffany S. Quindry, John C. Quindry, Charles L. Dumke
Year Published:

The objective of this work is to model and simulate aerial drops of fire retardants in dangerous fire environments. Specifically, the work develops a computational framework for a model problem combining: [1.] A meshless discrete element component…
Author(s): T. I. Zohdi
Year Published:

Physical distancing and wearing a face mask are key interventions to prevent COVID-19. While this remains difficult to practice for millions of firefighters in fire engines responding to emergencies, the delayed forthcoming of evidence on the…
Author(s): Elmar Bourdon, Thomas Schaefer, Maximilian Kittel, Matthias Raedle, Alexandra Heininger
Year Published:

We estimated cardiopulmonary morbidity and mortality associated with wildfire smoke (WFS) fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the Front Range of Colorado from 2010 - 2015. To estimate WFS PM2.5, we developed a daily kriged PM2.5 surface at a 15km X…
Author(s): Sheryl Magzamen, Ryan W. Gan, Jingyang Liu, Katelyn O'Dell, Bonne Ford Hotmann, Kevin Berg, Kirk Bol, Ander Wilson, Emily V. Fischer, Jeffrey R. Pierce
Year Published:

Wildland firefighters are exposed to smoke-containing particulate matter (PM) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) while suppressing wildfires. From 2015 to 2017, the U.S. Forest Service conducted a field study collecting breathing zone…
Author(s): Kathleen M. Navarro, Molly West, Katelyn O'Dell, Paro Sen, I-Chen Chen, Emily V. Fischer, Rebecca S. Hornbrook, Eric C. Apel, Alan J. Hills, Alex Jarnot, Paul DeMott, Joseph W. Domitrovich
Year Published: