IFRC Reports on the Mental Health Toll of El Niño's Fires and Drought in Tolima

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has published an account of how El Niño-linked heat, wildfires and drought in Colombia's Tolima department are affecting the mental health of rural families and of the volunteers responding to them. The article, released to coincide with World Mental Health Day, draws on testimony from the Colombian Red Cross Tolima Branch and from a specialist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.

According to the IFRC, temperatures in several Tolima municipalities have reached peaks of almost 40 degrees Celsius. "Natagaima is one of the municipalities where the heat is suffocating; you can really feel it burning your skin, and the wind burns too—it's quite strong," said Karen Juliet Montenegro Carrera, who leads Peacebuilding and Institutional Doctrine at the Colombian Red Cross Tolima Branch.

Burned crops, and what follows

The IFRC says those hot, dry conditions have fed the intensity and spread of wildfires, which have threatened coffee production — described by the organisation as one of the department's most vital export crops — along with limes, mangoes, sugarcane and other products. The federation frames each burned hectare as the loss of a household's long-term project, since the livelihoods, memories and security of rural families are tied to their crops and livestock.

"From one moment to the next, you are left with nothing. That is when mental health takes a direct hit — an emotional shock sets in because you don't know how you are going to face what lies ahead, or how you will ever recover from losing your land, crops and livestock," Montenegro Carrera told the IFRC, adding that there is "a very direct link between the climate crisis and mental health."

The IFRC attributes distress to the shortage of water for irrigation and livestock, and to fear of fires at night, with successive months of drought capable of producing critical states of despair. In the municipality of Ortega, the organisation reports, material losses and distress connected to fires and extreme heat have led to desperate situations, including suicide.

Montenegro Carrera also pointed to the duration of the event as a source of anxiety: "We are talking about El Niño extending into 2027, so if this is what an overwhelming heatwave looks like right now, I don't even want to imagine what the coming months will bring."

Three pathways of psychosocial impact

Ana Mejía, a mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) specialist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, sets out three interconnected routes by which the climate crisis affects well-being, as summarised by the IFRC. Direct impacts involve immediate loss of life or property, destruction of homes, and loss of biodiversity and ecosystems. Indirect impacts are the socioeconomic consequences — food insecurity, shortages of safe drinking water, interruptions to healthcare and the breakdown of community links. Vicarious impacts cover the distress of those who witness ongoing destruction, including frontline responders and volunteers, producing grief, acute stress, vicarious trauma and burnout.

The IFRC states that the burden falls unevenly, listing older adults, children, pregnant women, people of low socioeconomic status, homeless individuals and those with pre-existing medical conditions among the most exposed. People already living with mental health conditions, the organisation says, experience the highest rates of hospital admission for psychological distress and an increased risk of suicide during heatwaves.

Volunteers and the response

Many Tolima volunteers come from the affected communities themselves, the IFRC notes. "Some volunteers live in Coello, one of the worst-affected municipalities. They carry the lingering fear that the fire could reach their own homes and land," Montenegro Carrera said. For that reason, the IFRC argues, interventions should build in self-care, emotional decompression and peer support networks.

The Colombian Red Cross is providing psychosocial support to affected families alongside local authorities, businesses and communities. Local teams have also implemented a drought Early Action Protocol that distributed agricultural hydro-retainers and livestock nutritional blocks, provided cash transfers, installed a water treatment plant and supplied safe water storage containers. The IFRC recommends that humanitarian teams scale up community education, deliver continuous psychological first aid training, keep safe spaces accessible with updated referral pathways, add MHPSS indicators to field assessments and reinforce peer support networks. The full piece is available from the IFRC; further background on El Niño's human consequences is collected under impacts.