The Hidden Victims of America’s Wildfires

Summary

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Podcast Summary

The Daily — The Hidden Victims of America’s Wildfires

Date: October 28, 2025
Host: Rachel Abrams
Reporter/Guest: Hannah Dreier
Featured Story: Joel Eisminger

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Overview:

This episode investigates a hidden crisis in America’s fight against wildfires: the private contracting industry that provides thousands of frontline firefighters each year. The focus is on the lack of worker protections, resulting in many firefighters becoming gravely ill or financially ruined after service. Through the story of Joel Eisminger, a young firefighter who developed aggressive cancer after years on the firelines, the episode illuminates regulatory loopholes, a culture of denial, and urgent calls for policy change.

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Key Discussion Points & Storyline

1. The Rise of Private Firefighting Forces (00:31–05:12)

• Wildfire Season Intensifies: Wildfires are growing longer and more dangerous, leading states to increasingly hire private companies to supplement federal firefighting forces (00:31).
• Industry Overview: Private firefighting jobs are easier to obtain but come with fewer benefits, including lack of health insurance and reduced safety protections (05:13).

"These are easier jobs to get than working directly for the federal government… but there are a lot fewer protections and fewer benefits." — Hannah Dreier (05:27)

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2. Joel Eisminger's Journey to the Firelines (03:16–10:44)

• Background: Joel is a physically strong but driftily young man in Oregon, inspired by the camaraderie in the film Only the Brave, which depicts wildland firefighting (03:17–04:42).
• Entry into Firefighting: Recruited by Pacific Oasis, a private contractor, he’s quickly sent out to the “Klamathon Fire,” experiencing intense danger and forming strong bonds with his crew (05:11–10:44).

"This ain't the greatest job in the world, I don't know what is." — Joel (04:42, quoting Only the Brave)

• Culture and Conditions: Work is intensely physical — often using chainsaws, digging lines, with heavy packs, and always exposed to smoke without masks (10:11, 10:44).

"Being on fire doesn’t feel like a job. It's like make believe stuff that we do out there. You know, it's just fairyland shit." — Joel (10:34)

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3. Lack of Safety Measures & Fireline "Macho" Culture (11:06–13:48)

• No Protection from Smoke: Masks are neither provided nor allowed; smoke inhalation is normalized and almost glorified as a toughness test (11:06–12:07).

"Pacific Oasis workers told me mornings sounded like an emphysema clinic… everyone will be coughing and everyone will be sort of feeling sick." — Hannah Dreier (12:07)

• Denial of Risk: Firefighters aren’t informed about long-term health risks; mask use is culturally stigmatized (12:07–13:21).

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4. Joel’s Promotion and Sudden Illness (13:21–19:32)

• Climbing the Ranks: Joel is promoted to begin training as a crew boss and imagines a lifelong career (13:21–14:00).

"Did you imagine spending your whole career in fire?" — Rachel Abrams (13:48)
"Oh, yeah… I already knew I was in." — Joel (13:48)

• Severe Health Crisis: While on the job, Joel develops persistent rashes and facial paralysis but continues to work through the pain, driven by a desire to prove himself. A medic eventually insists he seek treatment, but he’s dropped at home by his boss instead of a hospital (16:07–18:29).

"You could have asked me what color the sky was, and I probably didn't know—that's how just messed up I was." — Joel (18:29)

• Cancer Diagnosis: At age 24, Joel is diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer most common in much older adults (19:20–19:32).

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5. Financial Ruin and Regulatory Loopholes (20:03–25:36)

• Medical and Financial Fallout: Lacking health insurance and denied worker’s comp, Joel and his family must pay treatment costs out-of-pocket (22:04–23:03).
• Denial of Responsibility: The private contractor claims illness isn’t provably work-related; workers' compensation claim is denied due to difficulties in linking cancer to smoke exposure (22:31–23:35).

"He basically said, anything could have caused this. Our workers compensation policy is not going to pay for this." — Hannah Dreier, quoting Steve (22:35)

• Systemic Gaps: Federal firefighters now automatically get benefits for a list of fire-linked cancers, but privately contracted firefighters do not, leaving many unsupported (25:05–25:36).

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6. A Culture of Disposability and Ongoing Risk (27:19–29:13)

• Joel’s Response: Despite knowing the probable cause of his illness, Joel desperately wants to return to the firelines, valuing camaraderie and purpose over personal safety (27:19–28:26).

"If I got a year left in my life, I'm gonna do the last year doing some shit I'd enjoy." — Joel (28:45)

• Broader Industry Issues: The episode reflects on the endless supply of young, at-risk workers and the disposable nature of their treatment by the system (29:13–30:03).

"When they get sick, the industry just sort of moves on. And there's always going to be another young person to come and replace them." — Hannah Dreier (29:28)

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7. Impact of the Reporting and Epilogue (30:10–30:50)

• Policy Change: After publication of Hannah’s reporting, Congress conducted oversight hearings and the forest service ended its ban on masks, providing them to all its firefighters. However, no changes have been made regarding worker compensation for contracted (private) firefighters (30:10–30:50).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Worker Disposability:

  “I think that for Matt and eventually for Joel, they got really fixated on these specifics of where he got dropped off, what time it was. Because they felt like Joel was just sort of dumped. Like he had been a disposable worker all along.” — Hannah Dreier (21:28)

• On Regulatory Denial:

  “What whistleblowers have been telling me, that there's just sort of been this culture of denial around how dangerous smoke is, because what do you do once you acknowledge that? You have to really change how fires are fought.” — Hannah Dreier (23:43)

• On Systemic Inequity:

  “If you've had, you know, Joel's career and then you develop leukemia and you're working for the forest service, you now don't have to prove where your cancer came from... But for Joel, he would have to prove where his cancer came from, which is almost impossible.” — Hannah Dreier (25:17)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:31 — Opening context; rise of private firefighting forces
• 03:16 — Introduction to Joel Eisminger’s story
• 10:44 — Daily realities and risks on the firelines
• 13:21 — Joel’s promotion & goal for a career
• 16:07 — Onset of Joel’s illness
• 18:29 — Hospitalization and diagnosis
• 22:04 — Out-of-pocket medical expenses
• 22:31 — Denial of workers' compensation
• 25:05 — Workers’ compensation system explained
• 27:19 — Joel weighs returning to firelines despite illness
• 30:10 — Impact of reporting; changes to mask policy

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Conclusion

Through deeply human storytelling and investigative reporting, the episode exposes how private firefighting contractors are filling a critical need as wildfire dangers escalate — but at grave human cost. Firefighters like Joel Eisminger face severe health risks without proper safety protections or a safety net. The episode directly spurred policy change on mask provision for federal wildfire teams, yet highlights that without extending worker compensation to contractors, thousands of vulnerable frontline defenders remain unprotected even as demand for their labor grows.

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Transcript

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[Rachel Abrams]

From the New York Times I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is the Daily as wildfire seasons grow longer and deadlier, states are increasingly relying on private companies to provide thousands of firefighters to the front lines. Today, my colleague Hannah Dreier explains how lax rules and regulatory loopholes have left many of these firefighters sick, in debt and on their own. It's Tuesday, October 28th. Hannah, it feels like every year there are more and more wildfires. And you have spent months investigating one specific aspect of wildfires, which is the wildfire fighting industry. So I'd love to start off with you telling us what got you interested in that particular angle.

[Hannah Dreier]

I first started thinking about this after the fires that tore through Los Angeles in January. I saw that there was all this footage, all these pictures coming in of the people who were fighting those fires. And I couldn't help but notice that there were all of these firefighters out there standing in what looked like the most toxic black smoke, and none of them were wearing masks. And it got me wondering, why is that? And what might be the consequences of working in that kind of environment with no protection? And so I started digging into the industry of people who fight wildfires. And what I discovered is that it's completely unlike any industry. They are out there in these really hazardous conditions and they work without protection. And a lot of them are getting very sick at young ages. And when they develop things like severe lung damage or cancer, things that are linked to this smoke exposure, they're often on their own. Often they they don't even have basic health insurance.

[Rachel Abrams]

So basically they're vulnerable at several different stages of this process. From starting work to actually getting sick.

[Hannah Dreier]

Exactly. I mean, what a lot of people have told me is they feel like they put their health on the line to protect people, and then when they get sick themselves, there's sort of no one there protecting them. And this is not a small issue. There are tens of thousands of people who do this work almost year round now. And as wildfire season grows longer and gets more intense, this is something that is just going to become More and more urgent. So to get my arms around this, I talked to hundreds of firefighters. Many of them were very sick. But there was one story that really stood out to me.

[Matt Eisminger]

Hi.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Come on in. I'm Matt.

[Matt Eisminger]

I'm Joel's dad.

[Hannah Dreier]

This is a young man named Joel Eisminger. So can we go all the way back to your childhood and start there?

[Joel Eisminger]

Just a lot of riding bicycles and a lot of races.

[Hannah Dreier]

Joel was a shy kid who moved around a lot. He didn't always have an easy time making friends. He was really physical. He went on long hikes, long bike rides. He played lacrosse in high school, and his nickname was battering Ram. But he had a hard time focusing in school. Sometimes he didn't go to class. He sort of barely managed to graduate. And once he graduated, he wasn't sure what he was going to do.

[Joel Eisminger]

Got a job at Taco Bell.

[Hannah Dreier]

He was living in Oregon. He got a job at Taco Bell. And one night I watched a movie.

[Joel Eisminger]

Called Only the Brave. I worked this blaze near Big Timber, Montana.

[Hannah Dreier]

He started watching this movie on TV called Only the Brave. No matter what's going on, we can't.

[Joel Eisminger]

Go back up there.

[Hannah Dreier]

Stay together. It's a movie that's about this tragedy that happened a few years ago where basically an entire crew of wildland firefighters died, burned by a fire. Hey, Supe. I just wanted to thank you for.

[Joel Eisminger]

Pulling me out earlier. Definitely an ass pucker, wasn't it? No doubt, man. I thought I was dying.

[Hannah Dreier]

And it's this tragic movie. But his reaction to it was to focus on the bond between these crew members.

[Joel Eisminger]

This ain't the greatest job in the world. I don't know what is.

[Hannah Dreier]

So in the movie, these guys are always joking. They're really close. And that really appealed to Joel. I mean, he's working at, like, a fast food restaurant during the day, and to him, this is like, oh, my God. It's a way to be outside, have friends, and be doing what he's best at, which is this sort of, like, physical work. So the very next day, he goes and applies to work for a company called Pacific Oasis.

[Rachel Abrams]

And what's Pacific Oasis?

[Hannah Dreier]

Pacific Oasis is one of hundreds of companies that now offer private firefighting services to the federal government. And these are easier jobs to get than working directly for the federal government doing firefighting.

[Rachel Abrams]

Like, less red tape.

[Hannah Dreier]

Yeah. Less paperwork to fill out, fewer hoops to jump through. You can get hired on the spot. And so they attract a lot of people like Joel, who maybe were a little adrift in life. So it's an easier job to get than working for the federal government. But there's a trade off, which is that there are a lot fewer protections and fewer benefits. So most people working for these companies don't have health insurance, for example. They have less training and overall they're just sort of less protected.

[Joel Eisminger]

So at Taco Bell I had a manager, he brought up Pacific Oasis, actually. So like, I had that in my head already. And he just told me all the cool stories and I was like, oh, this is sweet, man. You know, he's like, oh, hire anybody.

[Hannah Dreier]

So Joel walks in the door, he meets with the president of the company.

[Joel Eisminger]

He's like, this is exactly what we're looking for.

[Hannah Dreier]

And signs him up for training straight away on the spot. And he's almost immediately sent out to a major fire. And he's still 18 at this point. His father Matt remembers driving him down to the Pacific Oasis headquarters.

[Matt Eisminger]

So I went down there with him and dropped him off at the fire like it was a sporting event, you know what I mean? And I was incredibly worried about him, of course, as I think most parents would be.

[Hannah Dreier]

Matt was so worried that Joel was going to go out in this really dangerous situation. He knows his son is sort of hard headed. Maybe somebod sometimes pushes boundaries and he knew he couldn't stop Joel from signing up for this work. Joel was determined, but he was really worried, understandably so.

[Matt Eisminger]

Steve saw me just nervously pacing and waiting and he, Steve came up to me and he approached me and I.

[Hannah Dreier]

Was standing and Steve Dodds, who's the president of Pacific Oasis, comes over and talks to Matt and reassures him and.

[Matt Eisminger]

He said, hey, we'll take good care of him. He's going to be all right. And anybody could say that. But I truly did believe him. I respected him.

[Hannah Dreier]

And then Joel gets in a truck and he drives off to his very first fire. So can you tell us about your first fire?

[Joel Eisminger]

It was like California coming to the Oregon border. So we were there to like protect it.

[Hannah Dreier]

Coming into Oregon, this fire was called the Klamathon fire. Every fire has a name.

[Joel Eisminger]

So we were doing a lot of direct hand line. So that's you're at the fire's edge, you're digging down to like bare mineral soil, creating like a small fire break that the fire stops.

[Hannah Dreier]

So fighting a wildfire is not like what we sort of imagine when we think of firefighting. There's not usually water and hoses involved. It's more like you're digging a containment line.

[Rachel Abrams]

I would definitely Think that any kind of firefighting required water. So this is interesting.

[Hannah Dreier]

I mean, what it is is that wildfires are too big to put out with water. They can really only be trapped and contained.

[Joel Eisminger]

You're just trying to stop it from spreading on the ground, basically. Small flames smoldering.

[Hannah Dreier]

But what that means for somebody like Joel is that you're just working right next to the fire in a way that's sort of unbelievable. Joel's first night was basically traipsing around on a cliff's edge right next to the act of fire.

[Joel Eisminger]

The scariest part about that first fire was they call it a freight train. You start hearing the fire, you can't see it, but you just start hearing trees just torching and running. It sounds like, yeah, train.

[Hannah Dreier]

He told me about how he was hearing trees snap all night long, you know, so he's crossing checkpoints.

[Joel Eisminger]

Our National Guard was there. They shut down all highways and he.

[Hannah Dreier]

Gets to drive around them to go to this sort of off limits space with his crew.

[Joel Eisminger]

I'm like, I thought it was a.

[Hannah Dreier]

Close area and it's this wild, unpredictable scene.

[Joel Eisminger]

It's pure chaos, dude. Flames start ripping, wind changes.

[Hannah Dreier]

Where he is, right next to these flames.

[Joel Eisminger]

Fire on both sides of us. It's like I look up like a 200 foot wall of flames just like 50ft away from you. I'm just like, everybody's.

[Hannah Dreier]

And he's starting to get to know these guys who are sort of teaching him how to be out there and stay safe, but also teasing him.

[Joel Eisminger]

My closest friends I met on that first fire, you know, I've kept that circle for him.

[Hannah Dreier]

It was everything he had hoped it might be to go out and fight a wildfire.

[Rachel Abrams]

It sounds like he found that band of brothers element that he was really drawn to.

[Hannah Dreier]

Absolutely. So after that, he was pretty much hooked. He worked six more fire seasons. He learned to work a chainsaw, and that meant that he would sort of be out in front of the rest of the crew, leading this group of guys deep into the woods, cutting down trees, cutting down flaming branches.

[Joel Eisminger]

It took me three, about three years to be able to walk through the woods without falling over, if that makes sense. Like with a chainsaw with all the weight took about three years.

[Hannah Dreier]

He would be hiking with a 50 pound pack. Just, you know, him, his friends and nature.

[Joel Eisminger]

You're removed from, like, everyday life. And I don't like everyday life personally. So it's like, I like that, you.

[Hannah Dreier]

Know, it's really physically demanding, but it was also, for him, really rewarding. And Made him proud. He felt like it was finally something that he was just naturally good at.

[Joel Eisminger]

Just freedom. Being on fire doesn't feel like a job. It's like make believe stuff that we do out there. You know, it's just fairyland shit. So it's cool.

[Hannah Dreier]

But it also involved a lot of risk. He fell down a burning hill once. He almost cut into his foot with his chainsaw. He got full body poison oak. And one of the most dangerous things was a natural byproduct of fires, which was breathing in smoke. And nobody out there wore masks.

[Rachel Abrams]

Why wouldn't they wear masks?

[Hannah Dreier]

Masks weren't provided when he started this work, and they also weren't allowed. And this is a long time forest service policy. And what the forest service says is that wearing a mask could increase your risk of heat stroke. The work is really taxing. It's usually pretty hot out there. And the concern is if you're out there with something over your face, maybe you would start to overheat. Wildland firefighters in other parts of the world do wear masks. And there has not been a heat stroke issue there, but that's what the forest service says. But there was also this cultural element of not wanting to seem weak. Firefighters sort of see masks as, like, silly, as a sign that you're not going to be up to the job. And breathing in smoke is seen as the sign that you're willing to, you know, take sacrifices and focus on the work at hand, and you're not going to get too caught up in your own comfort.

[Rachel Abrams]

So basically, even if they had been provided with masks, what you're saying is that they probably wouldn't have worn them because of this culture.

[Hannah Dreier]

Yeah, there is this macho fireline culture. But I also think it's worth noting that at this point, firefighters like Joel weren't told that there was any reason to be concerned about smoke. So part of it maybe is that they thought that the masks could make them look weak. But they also maybe just had no reason to think that there would be a real benefit to wearing them. But the smoke exposure was really intense. Pacific Oasis workers told me mornings sounded like an emphysema clinic in their fire camps. They were coughing. They had black stuff coming out their noses. There's something called camp cred that goes around these fire camps where everyone will be coughing and everyone will be sort of feeling sick. And people just think of it as like a natural consequence of the work. For Joel, it was sort of like being sore. It was just something that he thought came along with fighting fires. And for him, it was proof that he was doing something right and he was putting in the right amount of effort. He was really focused on trying to get his boss Steve's attention and show Steve that he was tough and he should be sent out on more fires and maybe promoted. So he was working really hard. He was trying to impress Steve, show Steve that he would make any sacrifice.

[Rachel Abrams]

And he would cough up black stuff.

[Hannah Dreier]

Exactly. Go out for weeks and weeks without complaining. And he was getting these positive reviews. Steve seemed to be liking what he was doing. And eventually Steve invited him to start training to be a crew boss, which meant that he would lead his own team of about 20 people. And that, for Joel, was one of the proudest moments of his life. It was so validating. Did you imagine spending your whole career in fire?

[Joel Eisminger]

Oh, yeah, I already knew I was in. Yeah, I knew that's a job I wanted probably when I was 19. I was probably going to stick to that one, you know, I'm good at it. I'm really good at it.

[Hannah Dreier]

And he started to see this as probably being his lifelong career. And that's why what happened next felt like such a betrayal.

[Rachel Abrams]

We'll be right back.

[Narrator/Announcer]

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[Narrator/Announcer]

If you find yourself bewildered by this moment where there's so much reason for despair and so much reason to hope all at the same time, let me say I hear you. I'm Ezra Klein from New York Times Opinion, host of the Ezra Klein Show. And for me, the best way to beat back that bewildered feeling is to talk it out with the people who have ideas and frameworks for making sense of of it. There is going to be plenty to talk about. You can Find the Ezra Klein show, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Rachel Abrams]

So, Hannah, it sounds like Joel is basically living his dream life. When do things start taking a turn for the worse for him?

[Matt Eisminger]

Yeah.

[Joel Eisminger]

So looking back at it, I had a lot of different signs.

[Hannah Dreier]

Everything started falling apart last year. It was the fourth of July weekend.

[Joel Eisminger]

I was extremely. Probably the best shape I've ever been in my life. Before that, I just did my crew boss class.

[Hannah Dreier]

He was fighting a fire in Northern California, staying in a hotel.

[Joel Eisminger]

I broke out in a rash.

[Hannah Dreier]

He had this strange rash that was sort of creeping up his legs, my.

[Joel Eisminger]

Body, and it was so painful, dude. And I didn't know what was going on.

[Hannah Dreier]

It really hurt. It looked like nothing he'd ever seen before, but he didn't want to complain.

[Joel Eisminger]

And we're staying in hotels, right? So everybody's like, oh, you got bed bugs? Everybody's, like, freaking out.

[Hannah Dreier]

And so he let it slide. Then his crew moves deep into the forest, and they start camping there to get closer to the fire line.

[Joel Eisminger]

And day nine or ten, my face started to, like, droop.

[Hannah Dreier]

That's when his crewmates notice that his face is drooping. Half of his mouth is sort of just hanging open.

[Joel Eisminger]

Every fire you go on, there's going to be one thing that's always bugging you. You're gonna have blisters. Something. Some fingernail messed up. You're gonna have something.

[Hannah Dreier]

And again, he wants to be seen as this tough person who could be a crew boss. And so he keeps going, working these 12 hour shifts until the end of their deployment. That's when a medic finally sees him and says, you need to get to the hospital. You might have had a stroke.

[Rachel Abrams]

Were people worried about him? Do we know during the period that he's working with a drooping face, you.

[Hannah Dreier]

Know, people noticed it, but nobody was that worried. And I think that partly goes back to this fireline culture. I mean, if you get injured out on the fire line, you just rub dirt in it and keep walking.

[Rachel Abrams]

Oh, my God.

[Hannah Dreier]

So everybody is just very focused on getting this fire under control and keeping going, sort of no matter what happens.

[Rachel Abrams]

So the medic tells him, you need urgent medical attention. Does he go to a hospital? Does he heed that advice?

[Hannah Dreier]

So Joel opts not to take an ambulance. He instead is driven by Steve, the owner of the company.

[Joel Eisminger]

And in my impression, I'm going to the hospital. Right.

[Hannah Dreier]

He thinks that Steve is going to take him to the hospital. That's sort of the protocol for a moment like that. Instead, he was driven 90 minutes back from the fire line. And then he's surprised because Steve drops him off at his dad's house. It's almost midnight at this point. He looks drawn, he looks weak.

[Joel Eisminger]

You could have asked me what color the sky was, and I probably didn't know that's how just messed up I was. You know, my body was just shutting down.

[Matt Eisminger]

When I saw him in that state, I knew this isn't a cold.

[Hannah Dreier]

And his dad realizes something's terribly wrong here.

[Matt Eisminger]

I drove him to the hospital, thinking that he's going to die at any moment. I knew it.

[Hannah Dreier]

And immediately takes him to the emergency room.

[Matt Eisminger]

There's no going back from something like that happening as a parent.

[Hannah Dreier]

So at the hospital, doctors start running tests, and it takes a few days of tests, and Joel is getting weaker and weaker at this point, he can't even really walk down the hallway. And eventually, they come back with an answer that nobody expects. He is diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, which is an aggressive blood cancer that is most often seen in people in their 60s and 70s. Not somebody Joel's age.

[Rachel Abrams]

And how old was he at that point?

[Hannah Dreier]

He is diagnosed the day before he turns 25.

[Rachel Abrams]

Wow.

[Joel Eisminger]

That moment, it's still in shock for him. So feels fake, but it's not.

[Hannah Dreier]

You know, he needs immediate chemotherapy, immediate blood transfusions. That rash that was creeping up his legs turns out to have been his blood basically just breaking down. Without treatment, he could die within a matter of weeks. And the truth is, even with medical interventions, only about half of patients with this kind of cancer survive a year. But all Joel is thinking about in these days is how quickly he can get through treatment and get back to fighting fires.

[Joel Eisminger]

So I was really excited, man, to go back with that crew. I was locked in with that crew. But it was a good crew. They got the most hours out of any of the crews.

[Hannah Dreier]

You know, he's sort of not understanding how serious the situation is, how in danger he is of dying. And he's just focused on this life that he thought was in front of him.

[Rachel Abrams]

It sounds like he almost couldn't accept the reality of what was actually happening to his body.

[Hannah Dreier]

Yes. I mean, it's so jarring for him. Like, he just can't really process what's going on. But for his father, the reality was very clear. And he was thinking back to that first day when he dropped off Joel, and Steve said that he would take care of his son.

[Matt Eisminger]

He got dropped off at my doorstep by the same person not seven years prior, had told me, hey, we're gonna take care of him.

[Hannah Dreier]

For his part, Steve says that he understood that this was gonna be a long diagnostic process. For Joel, it wasn't gonna be a quick thing. And he was trying to do Joel a favor by letting him rest at home and then go into the hospital the next day. But Matt just cannot get over that moment, that nightmare moment of seeing your child. He felt like on death's door and they're being taken to your house Instead of taken to get medical care.

[Matt Eisminger]

They let him linger out there having facial paralysis, drooling, and all this stuff going on. He had no control over his muscles pain. He wasn't okay.

[Hannah Dreier]

And what happened to him really could have happened at any private firefighting company. No matter who he worked for, he would probably have been out there without a mask in heavy smoke. And he might have ended up in this exact situation at the hospital, sick with cancer. But I think that for Matt and eventually for Joel, they got really fixated on these specifics of where he got dropped off, what time it was. Because they felt like Joel was just sort of dumped. Like he had been a disposable worker all along. And so they felt really mad. And meanwhile, all of these medical bills started to come in.

[Joel Eisminger]

I was paying that first hospital bill. I didn't have insurance. I was paying that shit out of my pocket.

[Hannah Dreier]

Right? He and Matt felt like Pacific Oasis should be held accountable since he had gotten sick on their watch. And workers compensation covers things like lost wages and hospital bills when employ get sick on the job. So Joel and Matt decide they are going to file a workers compensation claim. They go down to Pacific Oasis, and Steve pulls them into a room and.

[Matt Eisminger]

Said, there's no way you guys can prove this is work related. And I said, what?

[Hannah Dreier]

He basically said, anything could have caused this. Our workers compensation policy is not going to pay for this.

[Matt Eisminger]

I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm just trying to say that this happened to him on a fire. Let's get him covered right now until we can figure this out. You know what I mean?

[Hannah Dreier]

But they filed the claim anyway. And ultimately the workers comp insurer denies their claim.

[Matt Eisminger]

So I was just using money out of pocket, basically. Out of pocket.

[Rachel Abrams]

And why couldn't they prove this link?

[Hannah Dreier]

It's almost impossible to prove that any individual cancer case comes from wildfire smoke. And that sort of shields the whole firefighting industry from responsibility. People who work at the Forest Service have told me that this is one reason that firefighters historically have not been provided with masks. Because if you give Somebody a mask. It's essentially acknowledging that smoke is risky and could cause some sort of long term illness.

[Rachel Abrams]

We're not going to give you a mask that could protect you because that would be an admission that you are in danger doing this work. So therefore, we were going to leave you unprotected.

[Hannah Dreier]

This is what whistleblowers have been telling me, that there's just sort of been this culture of denial around how dangerous smoke is, because what do you do once you acknowledge that you have to really change how fires are fought? The government might start to have to provide more staffing so that people could take breaks from smoke, and they might have to start covering this whole range of health conditions.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay, so the employers don't acknowledge a link between the work and the illness here, but is there a link between the work and the type of cancer that Joel got? Like, what do we know about that for sure?

[Hannah Dreier]

So until the 1980s, people thought that wildfire smoke was basically benign, like a campfire. But since then, there's been a lot of research that has shown pretty definitively that wildfire smoke is linked to cardiovascular issues, lung issues, and at least 12 kinds of cancers. So responding to this growing body of research, in 2022, Congress actually forced the forest service to start offering workers compensation benefits for a list of more than a doz cancers that are most strongly associated with smoke exposure. But that's not how it works for this large group of other firefighters working on contract for the forest service, but working for private companies.

[Rachel Abrams]

So basically, if you work directly for the federal government fighting fires, you will get coverage. But if you work for a private company that works for the forest service, you will not get coverage.

[Hannah Dreier]

Exactly. So if you've had, you know, Joel's career and then you develop leukemia and you're working for the forest service, you now don't have to prove where your cancer came from. It's just assumed that it came from your work on fires, because there's such a strong link. But for Joel, he would have to prove where his cancer came from, which is almost impossible.

[Rachel Abrams]

So basically, for somebody like Joel, he is completely on his own. It sounds like, to cover the cost of his treatment.

[Hannah Dreier]

Yes. And as you can imagine, it was extremely expensive. The family spent basically everything they had trying to pay for this.

[Rachel Abrams]

And how was Joel doing through all of this? Was the treatment working?

[Hannah Dreier]

The chemotherapy starts to fight back the cancer, but it takes a tremendous physical toll on Joel. He could barely move. He was in pain all the time. He would crawl up to his attic bedroom on Hands and knees. By the winter, though, he started to get better. His cancer went into remission, and he started recovering a little bit of streng out with his father to try to go on a hike like he used to do with him. And at first, he could only take these sort of stuttering steps. But little by little, he was able to recover a little bit of who he had been.

[Rachel Abrams]

It sounds like he beat the odds.

[Hannah Dreier]

I mean, he went into remission. His doctors were very careful to explain that the cancer could come back at any time, and it often does. And if it did come back, chemotherapy wouldn't be enough. He would have to have a bone marrow transplant. But after Joel got the sign off from his doctors in the spring, he sort of went back to that place of aimlessness that he had been in. After graduating high school, he didn't quite know what to do. He felt adrift. And his mind started drifting back to fighting fires. He started sort of fantasizing about, like, what if I went back there?

[Rachel Abrams]

He wanted to go back to the line.

[Hannah Dreier]

He wanted to go back to the line. It's where his friends are. It's a way to start making money to pay off his debts. And Joel is very hung up on that last fire that he fought and how he got sick and he wasn't able to keep going. He really sees that as a defeat. And in a lot of ways, he says he wants to redeem himself by getting back out on the fire line.

[Joel Eisminger]

Sure, I'm motivated. I can go do fire. But can I do a 14 day run? I don't know. Try till I die again? That's one of those things.

[Hannah Dreier]

He actually went and asked Steve for his job back. And Steve told him, are you crazy? You think that firefighting gave you this cancer? You're gonna go back? Isn't that tempting fate? So Steve wouldn't hire him. He couldn't get a job locally. So he bought a ticket to go to Alaska, where there are a lot more federal wildland firefighting jobs.

[Rachel Abrams]

Wow.

[Hannah Dreier]

And Matt desperately wants Joel to do any kind of work besides firefighting. But he also knows that if he pushes too hard, he could alienate Joel. So he's walking this really fine line.

[Joel Eisminger]

You know, everybody's telling me I'm insane, But I don't care what anybody thinks. Like, at the end of the day, it's just all I know.

[Hannah Dreier]

His kind of cancer is very aggressive. It doesn't have a great prognosis. In his mind, he is likely still to die from this cancer.

[Joel Eisminger]

If I got a year left in my life, I'm gonna do the last year doing some shit I'd enjoy.

[Rachel Abrams]

Right.

[Joel Eisminger]

I mean, the damage is already done, right?

[Thomas Gibbisnev]

No.

[Hannah Dreier]

Yeah.

[Joel Eisminger]

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's too late to turn back. I mean, shit.

[Hannah Dreier]

He feels like everything he's doing now is just sort of borrowed time. And if he ends up dying in his 20s, he wants to just keep going and keep being that strong firefighter.

[Rachel Abrams]

It really strikes me that there will always be a Joel. There will always be people who need this kind of work, who want to do this kind of work, and an industry that needs. Joel's right.

[Hannah Dreier]

It's true. There are tens of thousands of wildland firefighters. And as wildfire season grows longer and the fires grow more intense, the government is increasingly turning to firefighters like Joel. And people get into this work young, they really want to do it. And when they get sick, the industry just sort of moves on. And there's always going to be another young person to come and replace them.

[Rachel Abrams]

Hannah, thank you so much.

[Hannah Dreier]

Thank you, Rachel.

[Rachel Abrams]

Not long after Hannah published the first story in this investigative series, Congress held oversight hearings citing her reporting and pressured the agency to make changes. And soon after, it did, reversing its decades long ban on masks and announcing it will provide masks to all of its firefighters and encourage them to use them. No plans have been announced to extend worker compensation coverage to contract firefighters. We'll be right back.

[Thomas Gibbisnev]

My name is Thomas Gibbisnev. I'm a journalist at the New York Times. I served in the Marine Corps as an infantryman. When it comes to reporting on the front line, a lot of the same basics are at play. You're looking at the map of where you're going. If you're on a paved road, field road, is there a hospital nearby? Is your body armor affixed with a first aid kit? Does everyone know where that first aid kit is? We arrive into a military position. I get out of the car, I look at my watch, you know, I set a timer. No more than an hour. I'm listening for drones, jets. Check in with the team. Is everyone comfortable? And if they are, then we proceed. Frontline reporting is dangerous, but I think nothing is more important than talking to the people involved, involve hearing their stories and being able to connect that with people thousands of miles away. Anything that can make something like this more personal I think is well worth the risk. New York Times subscribers make it possible for us to keep doing this vital coverage. If you'd like to subscribe, you can do [e-mail] subscribe.

[Rachel Abrams]

Here'S what else you need to know. Today, Prime Minister Andrew Holness of Jamaica ordered mandatory evacuations and issued dire safety warnings as Hurricane Melissa, with winds of 175 miles per hour and enough moisture to drop nearly three feet of rain, churned towards his country and its 2.8 million people on Monday. Dangerous winds, catastrophic flooding and a storm surge as high as 13ft were expected in Jamaica as soon as Monday night, long before the hurricane's expected landfall on Tuesday morning. Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Jess Chung and Diana Wynn. It was edited by Devin Taylor, contains music by Marianne Lozano and Alicia Beitup and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for the Daily I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow. Tomorrow.

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[Hannah Dreier]

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