​VANFIRE Wellness

​STRESS AND TRAUMA IN THE FIRE SERVICE

You do a job that asks you to step toward things we are naturally wired to step away from. Your brain and body do their best to keep you alive. Sometimes those same systems work against you on scene or at home. This page lays out what is going on and what you can do about it.

Read it top to bottom once. Then come back to the parts you need. If you need someone right now, skip to the last section, Who to call.

Just came off a bad call? Start with the Bad Call Button page. It walks you through the first 24 to 96 hours.





STRESS BASICS

Stress is your body and brain reacting to a demand. Some of it is useful. It sharpens you up. The trouble starts when the load stays high and you never get a reset.

Stress in this job comes from three places. The calls. The way the job is set up. Life outside the hall. It all lands in the same bucket, and the bucket has a limit.

What your body does under stress

• Adrenaline and other stress hormones rise

• Heart rate and blood pressure climb
  

• Breathing rate changes and can get shallow
  

• Blood shifts toward the big muscles and away from skin and gut
  

• Pupils change, sweat increases, fine motor control can drop
  

• After the surge you can feel shaky, tired, or wired
  

The Adrenaline Crash

After a big surge your body drops, and that drop can feel like sadness, irritability, or being wiped out. New guys often think something is wrong with them. It is just your system settling. You feel pumped during the call, then three hours later you feel drained or emotional. That is biology, not weakness.

Five common reactions
tHESE ARE ALL AUTOMATIC AND HAPPEN IN AN INSTANT WITHOUT OUR CONTROL. 

Fight
Your body surges. You push hard, take control, get loud or very firm.
Firefighter example: stepping in and taking the nozzle or the command voice when things get chaotic.

Flight
Create space, back out, reposition, call for more resources.
Firefighter example: moving the crew to a safer spot or switching tactics quickly when conditions change.

Freeze
A pause or a stall. Mind goes blank for a beat. Body goes still.
Firefighter example: reaching a doorway and having a one second blank before the next step lands. It usually passes fast once someone calls the next task.

Take cover
You turtle down to protect and preserve. Reduce exposure.
Firefighter example: mask check, control your breathing, tighten the circle with your crew, use the rig or a wall for cover while you reset the plan.

Give up or check out
System overload. Autopilot. You do the task but feel detached, or you wait for a direct order because your head is foggy.

WHAT STRESS LOOKS LIKE
These lists have the more common signs. They do not cover everything. If you are worried about how you feel, talk in confidence to a CISM team peer or a professional.

Physical

• Tired all the time

• Headaches
  

• Muscle tension, clenched jaw
  

• Gut off, upset stomach
  

• Racing heart, tight chest
  

• Sweating, dizzy
  

• Aches and pains with no clear cause
  

• Getting sick more often
  

• Change in appetite
  

Behavioural

• Wanting to limit contact with others

• Substance use, increased smoking
  

• Vacant stare
  

• Acting out anger, like hitting or kicking a wall
  

• Change in appetite
  

Trauma and Your Senses:
Your senses take in everything on a call, and under stress they do strange things. Some of it happens in the moment. Some of it shows up later. All of it is common.

Sight
Your vision can narrow down to one thing, tunnel vision. Or a small detail gets burned in and sticks.
example: you can still picture the pattern on the couch but you cannot remember what the officer said. Weeks later a similar room at a friend's place gives you a jolt.

Hearing
Sounds can go quiet or muted, called auditory exclusion. Or everything gets sharp and loud. Later, certain sounds can pull you right back.
example: during a tough rescue the radio and the saws go distant. Months after, a smoke alarm chirping at home puts your whole body on alert.

Smell
Smell goes straight to memory with no filter. It is the quickest trigger there is.
example: someone's backyard fire or a certain kind of smoke drops you back into an old call while you are standing in a parking lot.

Touch
Your body remembers pressure, heat, weight and grip.
example: the weight of the pack, the heat through your gloves, someone grabbing your arm. At home a hand on your shoulder from behind makes you jump harder than it should.

Taste
Dry mouth and a metal taste are common when adrenaline is up. Smoke taste can hang around in your head too.
example: you notice that metal taste in your mouth on a bad call and later it shows up again just thinking about it.

Sense of time
Time can stretch or squish. Slow motion or way too fast.
example: a two minute search felt like ten. Or a whole call went by and you swear it was thirty seconds.

Memory
You can end up with gaps or spotty recall. You get pieces, not the full picture. That does not mean you did something wrong. It means your brain was busy keeping you going.

Task focus can be so strong you miss other cues around you. That is part of why we run crews and checks, so no single set of eyes carries everything.


TYPES OF STRESS AND TRAUMA

Operational stress
This is the stuff from the calls themselves. Long shifts, heavy call volume, tough scenes, noise, heat, pressure to get it right.

Organizational stress
This is the pressure that comes from how the job is set up, not from the calls. Schedules, overtime, getting moved around, probation, mixed messages, how decisions get made. You can handle the calls fine and still feel worn down by this stuff.

fOR A NEW FIREFIGHTER ON THE JOB IT CAN LOOK LIKE:

• Not knowing where you stand on probation and replaying every shift in your head.

• Getting bounced to a new hall or crew and starting from scratch again.
  

• Hearing different answers from different people on how something gets done.
  

• Missing family stuff because of the schedule.
  

• Staying quiet when you have a question because you do not want to look green.
  

Primary trauma
Direct exposure on scene. You were there. You saw the event, you were in it.

Secondary trauma
You were not the first one in or you came after. You are still affected by the story, the scene, or the person. This can also show up when you support a coworker who is struggling after a call.

Vicarious trauma and cumulative load
Vicarious trauma builds from repeated exposure to other people's trauma. Cumulative load is the stack effect over time. One call on its own might be fine. One hundred adds up. It can hit just as hard as being there and can change how you see and feel about the world.

Moral distress
Moral distress is being a helper who cannot help. You know what the person needs and you cannot give it to them. Maybe it is resources, protocol, scope, or the situation just will not let you.
example: your patient needs more than you can do on scene, or you are stuck waiting FOR RESOURCES TO MAKE IT TO THE SCENE while someone suffers.

Moral injury
Moral injury is having to do the job in a way that goes against your values. It can also be seeing something happen, or not being able to stop it, and it sticks with you. The wound is to your sense of right and wrong. It can carry guilt, shame, anger, grief, or pulling away from people.
example: yOURE AT A CALL AND YOU SEE SUFFERING OF SOMEONE WHO IS VULNERABLE OR YOUNG AND THERES NOTHING YOU CAN DO AT THAT POINT TO HELP THEM AND HAVE TO MOVE ONTO TO ANOTHER CALL OR EMERGENCY. 

THE EMOTIONS OF TRAUMA
Trauma brings a mix of feelings, and they do not show up in a neat order. None of them are wrong.

Anger
The most common one, and it often covers up something else. Short fuse, snapping at small stuff, feeling mad at the world.

Sadness
Heavy, low, tearful, or just a weight you cannot name. Sometimes it hits out of nowhere.

Guilt
Thinking you should have done more, done it faster, or done it different. Even when you did everything right.

Shame
Different from guilt. Guilt says I did something bad. Shame says I am something bad. This is the one that keeps guys quiet.

Fear and anxiety
On edge, dread, worry about the next call or about losing it in front of the crew.

Helplessness
Feeling like nothing you did mattered or that you could not change the outcome.

Flat or shut off
Feeling nothing. Not sad, not mad, just flat. Some people call it zen, but it is not calm. It is your system turning the volume down. It can feel like relief, but it also cuts you off from the good stuff.

Grief
Missing someone you did not even know. Carrying a patient or a family with you.

TRAUMA SYMPTOMS
These four are the big ones to know. Each one is your system trying to protect you. They get in the way when they hang around.

Emotional numbing
Shutting your feelings down to get through. The volume goes to zero.
At work: you handle a call that should BE DIFFICULT TO DEAL WITH and feel nothing. You do the task, you feel detached.
At home: your kid tells you something funny and you cannot feel it. Your partner asks how you are and you say fine, and honestly it is nothing.

Avoidance
Staying away from places, people, talk or reminders that bring it back.
At work: you take the long way around a certain street. You skip the crew chat about a call. You steer clear of a type of call.
At home: you stop going to a place that reminds you. You change the channel. You skip family OR CREW GATHERINGS with loud crowds.

Reexperiencing
Images, memories, dreams or flashbacks that show up when you did not ask for them.
At work: a similar patient, address or smell puts you right back in an old call halfway through a shift.
At home: bad dreams. A flash while you are doing dishes. A sound that drops you back.

Hypervigilance
Always on alert. Scanning. Cannot switch it off.
At work: you cannot relax even in the kitchen. Every tone drop and your whole body jumps, even on a quiet shift.
At home: you sit facing the door at a restaurant. You check the locks twice. A slammed door makes you jump out of your skin and the kids noise makes you snap.

How it shows up in your life

• Most of the time you will not notice the symptoms first. You will notice the results.

• Anger and a short fuse

• Sleep problems, cannot fall asleep or wake up wired

• Drinking, drugs, smoking or other ways to shut off

• Pulling away from friends and family

• Fights at home over little things

• Working extra to avoid being home

• Doom scrolling or gaming to zone out

• Body aches, gut problems, headaches
  
  

If you see these, do not just beat yourself up. They are signals. They are telling you SHOULD STOP AND GET SOME HELP.

Family and friends can take this personal. They may think they are the problem. Most of the time they are not. It is the work pattern still running.



For families
If you are a partner, parent or someone close to a firefighter, you are part of this too. These are good places to start, together or on your own.

Employee Assistance Program, Homewood Health
Call 1 877 871 8377 (VFRS)
As an employee you have access to Homewood Health. You can get Trauma Care and Depression Care with an occupationally aware, trauma informed counsellor. Your partner and dependents are covered too.

Connection to Care
​778-247-2273 (CARE)
A free and confidential phone line for municipal workers in BC. It connects you with mental health professionals who have completed the Firefighter Occupational Awareness Program, so they get the job. Call for advice, for a rough patch, or for everyday stress. This is not a crisis line, and you do not have to be in crisis to call.

BC FFOAT video series, psychological education
​British Columbia Fire Fighters Occupational Awareness Training Course
3 year module base psycho-education designed to build a indepth understanding of the psychological strains that firefighting can have on a fire fighter and their family and friends. Its Free.
(Course cLICK hERE)

Also Check out our Family PAge here : FAMILY SUPPORT PAGE​

YOUR FIRST YEAR
You are stepping into a job that can be amazing and also demanding. Here is the stuff that can show up for new firefighters.

Expect the awkward first year
Everyone questions themselves. Everyone wonders if they fit. Everyone feels behind at some point. You freeze for a second on a call and think everyone noticed. They did not. They have all been there.

There will be a call that sticks
Every firefighter has one. It does not have to be graphic. It just lands heavier than you expected. That does not mean you are weak. It means you are human. If a call that seemed routine stays in your head for a few days, talk about it early. It stops the shame story before it starts. The Bad Call Button page lays out what to do in the first 24 to 96 hours.

Build a couple trusted people
You only need one or two classmates or guys at your level you can talk to. No deep talks every week. After a tough call you pull one aside and say that one sat weird with me. That is enough to keep you grounded.

Get a counsellor early
Book one when life feels normal. It gives you a baseline so you both know what steady looks like. If your sleep tanks later, the counsellor already knows your usual self. And you have already built the relationship.

Do a check in each season
One session each season. Fall, winter, spring, summer. Twenty minutes. Say sleep is rough this month or I have been more irritable. You catch it early instead of drowning in it.

Keep life outside the hall
Do not let the job swallow your whole identity. Keep your hobbies and your friends going. Play hockey, meet a buddy for coffee on your days off. That outside world keeps you steady.

Dark humor stays at work
Dark humor is a normal pressure valve at the hall. It might not go well at home or with friends.


WHEN THE TANK RUNS LOW

The survival mode trap

When call volume and life both ramp up, a lot of us put our heads down and grind. Get through the shift. Get through the week. Then a month goes by. Common signs the tank is low.

• You feel nothing or you feel everything

• Sleep is junk or you wake up wired

• Short fuse at small things

• Hard to enjoy stuff you used to like

• Body aches, gut off, headaches

• You avoid calls or you chase them to feel something

This is the time to pull your head up. Small resets work. Food. Water. Movement. Sleep basics. One honest talk with someone you trust. If you are stuck in the mud, reach out to a clinician who knows our world.

Isolation creeps in

When you are tired or overwhelmed your system pulls back to protect itself. Staying away feels easier in the moment but it makes things worse long term. You go quiet at home for days because you feel off. A small move like texting a friend or going for a short walk with someone breaks that cycle.

Why checking in helps:

Firefighters are really good at shutting the emotional brain and getting the job done. You can look around the bay after a call and think you are the only one feeling it. That is rarely true. People are just wearing the mask. A quick check in lowers isolation and blocks the shame story that says I should be fine because everyone else looks fine.

Watch your own signals
Pay attention to changes in sleep, patience, interest in hobbies, appetite, or if you start feeling disconnected from people. If you are snapping at small things for two weeks straight, that is a signal to talk to someone.

Do not pretend you are fine
Pretending only gives stress room to grow. Saying something simple like that one bothered me takes the pressure off. You tell a trusted peer I do not know why but that call sat funny, and you feel lighter right away.


WHAT HELPS

On duty

• Simple recovery moves during the rest of the shift. Fluids. Food. Fresh air. Ten slow breaths.
  

• Know the path to peer support and a professional mental health practitioner. 
  

• Eat during the shift. Patience, focus and mood go downhill fast when you do not. Nerves make some recruits skip meals. Do not do that. 
  

• After a bad call, use the Bad Call Button page.
  

• Talk to your crew and trusted crewmate. 
  

At home

• Tell your people the pattern ahead of time. Bring them into the plan.
  

• Use a simple script. I am home. I might be quiet for a bit. It is not you. I care about you. If I am rough please say pause and I will reset.
  

• Short walk or shower before you step into family space.
  

• Watch for alcohol or doom scrolling as a default shut off. Swap in sleep, food, movement or a call with a trusted peer.
  

• If numb or jumpy sticks around or gets worse, talk to a professional who knows first responder work.
  

Sleep
Shift life can really take its toll. Sleep is the backbone of your mental health in this career. Dark, cool room. Less caffeine late in the shift. A wind down when you get home. After a busy shift, take ten minutes to settle before bed instead of going straight into your day.

For more on sleeping through shift work, check out the Sleep page.
Sleep Information


Techniques you can use right now

Slow breathing
Breathe in through your nose for a count of four. Breathe out slowly through your mouth for a count of six. Do ten rounds. The long breath out tells your body it can settle.

Box breathing
In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Hold for four. Go for a few minutes. Same breathing you already use to control your air, just on purpose.

4 7 8 breathing
In through your nose for a count of four. Hold for seven. Out slowly through your mouth for eight. Go for four rounds. It is a good one for winding down before sleep or when your head will not shut off.

Grounding, five four three two one
Name five things you can see. Four things you can feel. Three you can hear. Two you can smell. One you can taste. It pulls your head back into the room when it is racing or you are zoning out.

Guided meditation
Apps like Insight Timer have guided meditations you can use to settle down, wind down after a shift, or help with sleep. Ten minutes is plenty. Find a voice you can stand listening to and stick with it.

Move
Walk, lift, skate, ride a bike. Movement burns off the stress hormones that are still sitting in your body.

Reset breaks
A couple of minutes behind cover or out of the room to widen your attention and get your head back. You already do this on scene. Do it with your own head too.

Keep a routine
Same sleep window when you can. Food. Water. Your hobbies. Boring stuff holds you steady when things get heavy.


WHO TO CALL

Employee Assistance Program, Homewood Health
Call 1 877 871 8377 (VFRS)
As an employee you have access to Homewood Health. You can get Trauma Care and Depression Care with an occupationally aware, trauma informed counsellor. Your partner and dependents are covered too.

Connection to Care
​778-247-2273 (CARE)
A free and confidential phone line for municipal workers in BC. It connects you with mental health professionals who have completed the Firefighter Occupational Awareness Program, so they get the job. Call for advice, for a rough patch, or for everyday stress. This is not a crisis line, and you do not have to be in crisis to call.

CISM team and Peer support
Talk in confidence to a Peer Support Or CISM Team member. They can assist you in the nuances of our job and give specific resources and direction you may need to overcome something going on in your life. 
Lists Can be found in All Fire Halls 

If it is an emergency or you are thinking about hurting yourself
Call or text 988, the Suicide Crisis Helpline, any time, any day. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.

You do not have to be falling apart to ask for help. Reaching out early is part of doing this job well.

Now that we've identified all of this: what can we do about it? 

Prioritize Wellness and self care: Decompression Page

Take care of your self after significant Calls or events : Bad Call Button Page

Talk To someone who is trained to help you through this : Finding a Mental Health Professional Page 

Set up and maintain a open dialoge with your family support system at home so they know what youre going through : Family Page

Educate yourself on the psychological toll this job can take on you through our:
 Firefighter Occupational Awareness Program

Disclaimer

Emotional

• Anxiety, fear, guilt, anger

• Depression, sadness, irritability
  

• Feeling lost, feeling isolated
  

• Worried about others, sense of shock
  

• Feeling numb or abandoned
  

• Exaggerated startle response
  

Thinking

• Slow thinking, confusion

• Memory problems
  

• Reliving the event, flashbacks
  

• Distressing dreams
  

• Trouble making decisions or solving problems
  

• Trouble focusing or concentrating
  

• Disorientation, place or time