IN THE NEWS: JUSTIN DEMOSS ATTENDS THE 2025 SMOKE SYMPOSIUM

Hotshot Wellness’s Director of Operations, Justin DeMoss recently attended the Rocky Mountain Wildfire Smoke Symposium to advocate on behalf of Wildland Firefighter Health & Wellness. The follow are excerpts taken from the Boise State Public Radio article.

A united front’ 

You’re pushing your mental and physical limits every single day,” he said of the work.
Wildfire has a longstanding reputation for hyper-masculinity, but DeMoss said the culture is going through a major shift.

“I think a lot of individuals are finally coming around to that concept that our vulnerability is not a weakness, our ability to reach out and get help is not a weakness,” he said. “It just makes individuals stronger with community and relationships.”

And at the conference, he sees the real possibility of a ‘united front’ between firefighters and researchers to address serious health concerns.

“It would be really tough to do it without them,” he said of investigators. “And simultaneously, it’d be hard for them to do it without us.”

“I feel like I’m leaving this conference extremely supported,” he added.

This article was written by @murphywoodhouse