{"id":93003,"date":"2019-07-14T23:27:17","date_gmt":"2019-07-14T23:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/agencies-boost-efforts-to-stop-wildland-firefighter-suicides\/"},"modified":"2019-07-14T23:27:17","modified_gmt":"2019-07-14T23:27:17","slug":"agencies-boost-efforts-to-stop-wildland-firefighter-suicides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/agencies-boost-efforts-to-stop-wildland-firefighter-suicides\/","title":{"rendered":"Agencies boost efforts to stop wildland firefighter suicides"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bill
Bill Arsenault of the Idaho Falls Fire Department looks at memorial stones June 3 at the Wildland Firefighters Monument at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Federal officials at the NIFC are bolstering mental health resources for wildland firefighters following an apparent increase in suicides.<\/span>Keith Ridler\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Toward the end, his skills and experience propelled him to lead a federal multi-agency team that responded to large-scale national disasters. On some days he directed a thousand firefighters and helped coordinate aircraft attacks on massive blazes.<\/p>\n

But then came the long offseason lacking the shared-risk camaraderie. Isolation closed in, his family said, along with marital problems that can be exacerbated by first-responder jobs that require missed family events and birthdays.<\/p>\n

Del Grosso, 50, killed himself May 9, 2016, not long before the start of another wildfire season.<\/p>\n

\"A
A memorial stone for Shane Del Grosso at the Wildland Firefighters Monument at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.<\/span>Keith Ridler\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI always thought that you\u2019d see it coming, but I guess you don\u2019t,\u201d said his best friend, Noel Matson, who worked and fought wildfires out of the same U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Huron, South Dakota, as Del Grosso. \u201cIt was maybe that male bravado firefighter thing where you don\u2019t talk about what\u2019s bothering you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal officials at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise have started making efforts to change that mindset after noticing an increase in wildland firefighter suicides in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a profession where people want to reach out for help because they are the help,\u201d said Jessica Gardetto, a fire center spokeswoman and former wildland firefighter. \u201cThe federal agencies have realized, whether it\u2019s suicidal tendencies or just overall mental health, it\u2019s a resource that needs to be available \u2013 even out on the fire lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

No figures on wildland firefighter suicides are available because federal agencies often track only fatalities that occur during work hours, and families don\u2019t always release a cause of death.<\/p>\n

But Gardetto said the wildland firefighting community is small, \u201cand word spreads quickly.\u201d Anecdotal reports suggest many of the suicides are happening outside the wildfire season. A month ago, she said, a U.S. Forest Service firefighter based in the U.S. Southwest killed himself. And she said several suicides occurred in Idaho in 2017. One of those was a Boise-based U.S. Bureau of Land Management smokejumper, a firefighter who jumps from airplanes.<\/p>\n

\"Memorial
Memorial stones at the Wildland Firefighters Monument at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, for wildland firefighters killed by a wildfire on June 30, 2013, near Yarnell, Ariz.<\/span>Keith Ridler\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Reasons for the rise are unclear, though some cite longer and tougher wildfire seasons and an increase in the number of wildland firefighters who previously served in the military and were already dealing with post-traumatic stress.<\/p>\n

In the past several years, the National Interagency Fire Center has bolstered a program that teaches coping skills and offers one-on-one crisis intervention to firefighters dealing with trauma and other issues. Federal agencies also have increased efforts to make firefighters aware that help is available.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what kind of help Del Grosso was receiving. His family learned after his death that he\u2019d been diagnosed with PTSD.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously he couldn\u2019t escape whatever demons were haunting him. And that breaks your heart,\u201d said his older sister, Stacey Chaney.<\/p>\n

Throughout Del Grosso\u2019s career with different agencies, his family tracked news reports hoping to get a glimpse of him at work. It was easier after he rose through the ranks to become an incident commander, a job in which he often spoke at news conferences.<\/p>\n

He also sent thousands of wildland firefighters into burning forests, and they trusted him to get them out again.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe relished his role as incident commander,\u201d said Matson, Del Grosso\u2019s friend and colleague. \u201cHe worked well with people and knew just about every position, and everybody respected that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friends and family say Hurricane Katrina might have taken the most out of Del Grosso.<\/p>\n

He told them it was the worst disaster he\u2019d ever been assigned, but left out the details. Nearly 2,000 people died in the 2005 hurricane and its aftermath, and parts of New Orleans were destroyed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s where a lot of his problems started,\u201d said his mother, Sharalyn Del Grosso. \u201cSeeing all that death, all that loss, all that death and dying. There were so many people that needed so much, and he couldn\u2019t do it. That need of wanting to fix it, to do more, to make it better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Stacey
Stacey Chaney and her brother Shane Del Grosso enjoy a moment together at a youth baseball game in 2016 in Hagerstown, Md., shortly before Del Grosso committed suicide at age 50.<\/span>Courtesy of Mark Chaney via AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Del Grosso is one of the highest-ranking firefighters to have his name placed on a memorial stone at the Wildland Firefighters Monument at the federally managed fire center in Idaho. The monument honors some 400 firefighters killed by flames, falling trees, vehicle mishaps, airplane crashes and heart attacks.<\/p>\n

That Del Grosso\u2019s name was included is recognition of some of the challenges wildland firefighters face away from fire lines, said Bill Arsenault, a wildland firefighter and paramedic with the Idaho Falls Fire Department in southeastern Idaho.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d he said while walking past the monument\u2019s stones, noting the names of some of the firefighters he knew. \u201cSometimes we only memorialize quote-unquote \u2018true heroes.\u2019 But they were doing the job no different from anyone else. I think it\u2019s good that we\u2019re recognizing the contribution that Shane made.\u201d<\/p>\n

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arsenault of the Idaho Falls Fire Department looks at memorial stones June 3 at the Wildland Firefighters Monument at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Federal officials at the NIFC are bolstering mental health resources for wildland firefighters following an apparent increase in suicides.Keith Ridler\/Associated Press Toward the end, his skills and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735,6216,5756],"tags":[955,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-93003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","category-suicide","category-wildfire","tag-suicide","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93003"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=93003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}