The Wildland Fire Wife

The Wildland Fire Wife A Wildland Fire Wife. Let's navigate fire season, marriage and motherhood together.

We adopted Schooner last July at the age of two from a dog rescue. He was walking around with his foster, and we instant...
06/13/2026

We adopted Schooner last July at the age of two from a dog rescue. He was walking around with his foster, and we instantly fell in love with him. His handsome face and little legs can't help but bring a smile to your face. Schooner has the kindest heart, which has led him to become our 5-year-old's best friend. He is funny and smart, following family members wherever they go. He loves his walks and is very active for such a short, stocky guy. Schooner is a very special part of our family, and we want to do whatever we can to help him live a happy life.

Last week, we found out that Schooner has Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM), a serious, progressive heart muscle disease. It causes the heart to become enlarged, thinned, and weak, impairing its ability to pump blood effectively. Without a cure, this condition typically leads to congestive heart failure and requires lifelong, specialized veterinary management. This diagnosis was heartbreaking, but we are determined to give Schooner the best care possible.

The funds raised will go towards a veterinary cardiologist who will help us receive the best treatment for Schooner's current state, along with lifelong support. Thank you for reading Schooner's story. If you met him in person, you would have to stop and give him love, which he would gladly accept. He loves meeting new people, especially when they comment on his little legs and talk about how cute he is. His gentle soul would surely win you over, and his golden eyes will sweep you off your feet. If you could support Schooner through this new diagnosis, he and his family would be unbelievably grateful. Thank you for taking the time to read his story.

https://www.gofundme.com/u/7d3ac924-e70b-4b1d-8504-8fb86e5a3559

I encourage every fire wife to befriend a fire wife. They are the only ones who will understand. They are the people who...
04/17/2026

I encourage every fire wife to befriend a fire wife. They are the only ones who will understand. They are the people who will call you a hero because they know what you hold. They know what the emptiness feels like. They know the love that’s needed to make these marriages work. They will be your emotional support.

Today I received a beautiful text from a fire wife it shows you just how important these relationships are.

From my friend: Can I ask that you take minute today and see all that you’re doing and accomplishing? Cause it’s fricken awesome and you deserve to feel good about it…before heading back on the Mom duty grind. Haha🫶

And so that’s what I did. I took a moment for myself to appreciate my accomplishments. And you know what? It felt good.

04/09/2026

Don’t watch the news.

Not the leaving. Not the coming home. The part that lives in the middle that strange, disorienting space where he walked...
04/08/2026

Not the leaving. Not the coming home. The part that lives in the middle that strange, disorienting space where he walked back into your life, and then walked right back out again before you even had a chance to exhale.
You had just started to feel it. That shift. The weight redistributing itself across two sets of shoulders instead of one. The quiet relief of hearing another adult voice in the house. The kids running to him. The way the energy of the home changes when he walks through the door fuller somehow, louder, more alive.
And then his phone rings. Or the text comes through. Or he just knows before either of those things happen because fire season has its own language and he’s fluent in it in a way you’ll never quite be.
And just like that, he’s gone again.
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from this moment that I’m not sure the English language has a word for. It isn’t just tired. Tired is Tuesday after a long week. This is something older than that. Something that lives in your bones and your chest and the part of you that had already started to let your guard down. You already started to believe that maybe this time you’d have a few weeks to just be a family before the door closed behind him again.
You stand in the kitchen, or the driveway, or wherever it is you said goodbye, and the house settles back into its solo rhythm. The kids are still loud. The laundry is still there. The calendar still has things on it that need to happen whether he’s home or not.
And you put one foot in front of the other because that is what you do. That is what you have always done. But underneath that forward motion is something heavier. A depletion that isn’t quite sadness, isn’t quite loneliness, isn’t quite anger though it carries traces of all three. It is the particular emotional weight of a woman who has been strong for so long that she can’t quite remember what it felt like not to be.
People who haven’t lived this life will tell you it gets easier. And maybe in some ways it does. You get better at the logistics. You find your rhythm. You build a life that functions with or without him in it because it has to.
But I don’t think the feeling ever fully goes away.
The feeling of standing on a shore and watching the tide go back out. Of finally getting your footing only to feel the sand shift beneath you again. Of loving someone whose calling pulls them away from you over and over and choosing every single time to still be here when they come back.
Fire season has a particular kind of sadness that doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t arrive with drama. It seeps in quietly. Into the evenings when the house is too still. Into the mornings when you wake up and remember before you even open your eyes. Into the moments when your kid says something funny and you reach for your phone to tell him and then remember there may not be service where he is.
It lives in the in-between.
And I’ve stopped trying to find the right word for it. Because I think some feelings are too specific to this life to have been named yet. They belong to a particular kind of woman strong in ways that are invisible, soft in ways she rarely lets anyone see, carrying something most people will never fully understand.
You know who you are.
And somehow, that has to be enough.

We planned a family trip around fire season, but held our breath, and we actually pulled it off. My husband was on a fir...
04/03/2026

We planned a family trip around fire season, but held our breath, and we actually pulled it off.

My husband was on a fire for 14 days. Flew home. Loaded the truck and the next morning we were off camping.

Each vacation or plan is never guaranteed for a first responder family. We make plans knowing that they could change quickly and abruptly.

But we make them anyways because what other choice do we have.

So glad he made it back for spring break 2026.

It took me way too long to realize how important my own mental health was. I thought to myself if he is this brave and s...
03/27/2026

It took me way too long to realize how important my own mental health was. I thought to myself if he is this brave and strong I need to match his energy.

But the truth is I don’t need to be in flight and fight mode all the time. I can learn to control my nervous system and be present.

My bravery and strength comes in a different version than his and accepting that has changed a lot for me.

The anxiety is legitimate. It is not dramatic.Mental health experts note that overwhelming anxiety, constant worrying, a...
03/25/2026

The anxiety is legitimate. It is not dramatic.

Mental health experts note that overwhelming anxiety, constant worrying, and trouble sleeping are common responses for people living in close proximity to wildfire risk and that's for the general public. For us, the anxiety doesn't come and go with the news cycle.

It's structural. It's baked into the job. We know the real risks. We know what the red flag warnings mean. We know that when a fire blows up, communication goes dark.

And right now, the backdrop is harder than ever. Fires are getting bigger and more frequent. Of the ten years with the largest acreage burned in U.S. history, all have occurred since 2004. Our husbands are being asked to do more with less, in more dangerous conditions, while we sit at home watching fire maps and pretending to our kids that everything is fine.

The anxiety you feel is not weakness. It is a completely rational response to a genuinely dangerous situation.

said something in my comments that cracked something open in me. And I knew it couldn’t just live there.Because for eve...
03/20/2026

said something in my comments that cracked something open in me. And I knew it couldn’t just live there.

Because for every person who goes quiet after a hard shift, there’s someone at home who noticed. Who felt it before a single word was spoken. Who made themselves smaller so there was more room for whatever came through that door.

And that person? They have a whole story too. One they rarely tell. One that gets folded up and put away, again and again, because this life teaches you pretty quickly that there’s a time and a place and it’s usually never.

That kind of love is quiet. It’s invisible. And it costs something.

Swipe through. This one’s for you. ❤️

I used to wish I knew everything. Every hard night, every close call, every moment he was out there, missing us and not ...
03/18/2026

I used to wish I knew everything. Every hard night, every close call, every moment he was out there, missing us and not saying it.

But I don’t anymore.

Some things are his to carry. And loving him means trusting that without needing every detail to feel close to him. What I know is enough. What he is, is enough. And the life we have built together in the middle of all this fire and uncertainty and distance that is more than enough.

For the fire wives who loved their husbands in the spaces between what is said and what isn’t this one is for you?

Link in bio

There's something about a campfire that makes people tell the truth. 🔥As a wildland fire wife, I've learned that if you ...
03/16/2026

There's something about a campfire that makes people tell the truth. 🔥As a wildland fire wife, I've learned that if you sit quietly enough around a fire with a group of wildland firefighters, the real stories eventually come out.

Not the highlight reel. Not the "it was crazy but we handled it" version. The real ones the ones that start slowly and then land on you like a weight you weren't expecting to carry.

I know my husband's job is dangerous. I've always known. But when you live this life long enough, it becomes your normal. You adapt. You stop flinching. The danger becomes background noise — not because you stop caring, but because you have to keep living.

And then someone starts talking around the fire. About a wind shift that came out of nowhere. About terrain that doesn't match the map. About hour sixteen of a shift when your body is running on something that isn't quite energy anymore just will.

And something in you quietly recalibrates. I wrote about what it's like to sit in those moments to laugh when they laugh, and feel the weight of what they aren't quite saying out loud.

For every fire wife who has ever reached for her husband's hand in the dark and held on just a little tighter.

New Substack post is up.
Link in bio. 🧡

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