FIRES syndrome is so rare that most people never hear about it unless it enters their lives without warning. For Fountain Hills resident Brielle May and her family, it did, changing everything that followed.
In February 2024, Brielle, then a University of Arizona freshman, suffered a sudden seizure after developing a fever. She was diagnosed with FIRES, or Febrile Infection-Related Epilepsy Syndrome, a devastating neurological condition that can strike previously healthy children and young adults. What often begins as a minor illness can quickly escalate into relentless, drug-resistant seizures.
Doctors placed Brielle in a medically induced coma that lasted two months as physicians worked around the clock to control relentless seizures caused by a condition with no clear cause and no established treatment.
