By Travis Dotson

This is a plug for a podcast. The podcast is a conversation with Brit Rosso, the Director of the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center. In the discussion, we try to make sense of the super complex and convoluted topic of “identity.” Some of the questions we stumble into:

• What does it mean to be “All-in?”
• What are all the ways your identity can get “smashed?”
• What do we struggle with when we leave the fireline?
• Do you “throw rocks” at folks struggling with retirement?

Just a few straight forward topics. We also touch briefly on suicide, community, intimacy, vulnerability, divorce, depression, substance abuse, you know – all that stuff that is so easy to talk about.

Listen:

Related: Two More Chains – Fall 2017 “Why Identity Matters” is the focus of this issue. Read about Wally Ochoa, Lead Sawyer on the Winema Interagency Hotshot Crew, who survived a career-ending injury on the 2014 Freezeout Ridge Fire. As you read about Wally’s ordeal, ask yourself hard questions about who you are, what you do, what risks you take—and what those risks are worth.