I speak with Nelda St Clair, national incident command stress management program director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and 40-year wildlands firefighter veteran about her work with mental health in the firefighter community. We discuss the imbedded challenges of long deployments, sleep deprivation, mental and physical fatigue, injury risk and disconnection that increase the risk of substance abuse, depression and suicide in wildland firefighters. Nelda explains how new evidence-based research and program development have impacted mental health resiliency and how her current BIA work with Native American firefighting crews has taught her the imperatives of blessing, ritual and connectivity in finding beauty in the ashes.
