Los Angeles, California – A string of wind-driven wildfires this month sparked unprecedented destruction in southern California, with fire crews made up of both current and former prisoners of war at the ready to contain the flames.
California’s firefighting programme has long been criticised for its reliance on imprisoned workers, who face low pay and dangerous conditions.
However, program supporters point out that the state has recently increased opportunities for incarcerated firefighters to work in the field upon release.
A crew of former incarcerated firefighters recently led by Brian Conroy, a captain at the state’s firefighting agency Cal Fire, to battle the Kenneth Fire and Palisades Fire north of Los Angeles.
He explained that since October 2018, about 432 people have been certified as firefighters for those on parole at the Ventura Training Center (VTC) on a windy morning in mid-January.
“This programme is one of a kind”, said Conroy, a tall, stocky man in a dark blue Cal Fire uniform.
“These guys work well under pressure because they’ve lived a life under pressure”.
Incarcerated labour
About 1, 747 incarcerated workers live in a network of 35 “conservation fire camps”, according to California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO). Cal Fire, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), and the Los Angeles County Fire Department co-manage the camps.
People at the camps are taught how to manage large fires, such as removing brush and handling bulky equipment, to create fire lines. They also undergo the vigorous physical training necessary to lug nearly 30kg (65lb) of gear through California’s sometimes steep, difficult terrain.
In addition to their significant contributions to the state’s firefighting efforts, incarcerated firefighters can account for up to 30% of the state’s wildland firefighting force, according to statistics.
The program’s supporters point out that participating in it is voluntary and that sentence-sparing actions are possible.
They add that being active in community-based activities while out and about is a nice alternative to the routines of prison life. According to Conroy, many people find it rewarding and exciting to fight fires.
“If you talk to some of the folks on these crews, they’ll tell you it’s the best thing that ever happened to them”, Conroy said.
Explosive wildfires
But the work is strenuous and sometimes dangerous. Additionally, the state benefits from significant cost savings by employing incarcerated workers, which allows scrutiny of the program’s motivations.
“The lives of incarcerated people are not expendable”, Amika Mota, the executive director of the Sisters Warriors Freedom Coalition, an advocacy group, said in a statement on Monday.
Mota herself has been an incarcerated firefighter, and her organisation hopes to push for greater fire safety for all people in California’s prisons. She noted that sometimes authorities are slow to liberate the prisoners inside when wildfires approach prisons.
“They deserve safety as much as the rest of the impacted community”, she said.
Critics also point to the discrepancy in pay as one of the firefighting programme’s downsides.
Only a small portion of the wages that non-incarcerated crews receive are paid by incarcerated workers. They receive between $5.80 and $10.24 a day, a figure that can increase by $1 per hour when they are deployed to fight fires.
Still, even with that bump, daily wages only amount to about $29.80 for 24 hours of work.
By comparison, the monthly base salary for a Cal Fire employee is between $3, 672 and $4, 643, with an additional $1, 824 to $2, 306 for “extended duty week compensation” — a term for the hours worked beyond a normal schedule.
State officials are also made to feel the need for more firefighters, which is making an incarcerated workforce even more appealing.
California’s fire season is now year-round. January, for instance, is not typically when the state sees strong fire activity, but months without rain created conditions for explosive fire growth in the southern region’s shrubby chaparral landscape.
Both the Palisades and the Eaton fires erupted on January 7. Although the cause of the fires is still unknown, it is rumored that electrical equipment is faulty.
Winds as strong as 160 kilometres per hour (100 miles per hour) helped stoke the flames, making them nearly impossible to contain. They levelled the paths of both the historically Black community of Altadena and the coastal neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, leveling both buildings.
According to Cal Fire, the Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire now rank as the second and third most destructive in state history, with 9, 418 and 6, 662 structures destroyed, respectively. At least 17 people have been killed in the Eaton blaze, along with 11 in the Palisades.
For those who have been doing this for a long time, the destruction is a very difficult pill to swallow, according to Conroy. “When someone loses their house, it’s not just the house. They lose everything with it. It’s the memories of childhood, the pictures on the wall”.
However, California continues to be debatable over the status of the workers tasked with conjuring up the flames and the compensation they are paid for doing so.
Legislative steps
In response to some of the criticism, the state legislature has recently taken some actions to alter the program for incarcerated firefighters.
Governor Gavin Newsom approved the bill AB 2147 in September 2020 that would have allowed former incarcerated firefighters with histories of nonviolent offences to have their records expunged.
That opens them up to careers in fields like firefighting and emergency services, which their criminal histories might otherwise require.
Senator Eloise Gomez Reyes, the author of the bill, stated in an emailed statement to Al Jazeera that the legislation “aims to ensure that incarcerated people are given the opportunity to continue serving their community as full-time firefighters.”
State representative Isaac Bryan also introduced legislation this month that would require inmates to be paid the same hourly rate as the lowest-paid non-incarcerated firefighter.
The fiscal committee of the legislature could hear the bill as soon as February 15.
Andrew Hernandez, a 41-year-old who is completing the programme at Ventura Training Center and recently sent in a job application to Cal Fire, said that, when he first entered prison, he never imagined that he would become a firefighter.
“Not in a million years would I have guessed”, he laughs, calling the programme “life-changing”.
Source: Aljazeera
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