Nearly 800 CA Inmates Among Crews Battling Wildfires

Crews battling the massive blazes burning across Los Angeles County include more than 750 incarcerated firefighters, bringing renewed attention to a program that has become a key part of the state’s fire mitigation efforts.

As of mid-day Thursday, Jan. 9, with the destructive Palisades and Eaton fires still raging, there were 783 inmate firefighters actively working alongside 4,700 firefighters from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The long-running initiative – officially known as the Conservation (Fire) Camp Program – is operated out of 35 minimum security fire camps across the state. Inmates who take part in the program are trained to carry out fire suppression efforts, such as reducing vegetation that could fuel a wildland fire, and during an emergency can be deployed to active wildfires.

Inmates volunteer for the program, but to be accepted must be in the lowest prison security classification, have eight years or less remaining on their sentence and cannot be serving time for violent crimes or have a history of escaping custody or arson. While working a wildfire, inmate firefighters are supervised by Cal Fire captains, according to CDCR officials.

Members of the inmate fire crews are paid between $5.80 and $10.24 per day, depending on their skill level, as well as an additional $1 per hour during an active emergency. Corrections officials say this means that while working an active wildfire, those considered the lowest skill level would earn $26.90 per day.

During the current round of fires, CDCR officials say the inmate crews have “been working around the clock cutting fire lines and removing fuel from behind structures to slow the fire spread.”

As the fires burned across Los Angeles County this week, some social media users and writers called out the use of inmates to battle the blazes.

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• Two Dead, 1K Structures Destroyed in Los Angeles County Wildfires
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• Los Angeles Firefighters Find Failing Hydrants as Wildfires Rage
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Some criticized the low pay inmates receive for such dangerous work. Others quoted as much as 30% of firefighters currently battling the blazes in Los Angeles County were inmates.

At one point, in past years, the members of the inmate crews did account for as much as a third of the state’s wildfire force. But the number of inmate firefighters has dropped in recent years as the overall prison population has declined.

More than 7,500 personnel have responded to this week’s fires in Los Angeles County, according to a Cal Fire summary released on Thursday morning. That includes firefighters from Cal Fire, the inmate crews and county and municipal fire departments from Southern California and beyond, as well as law enforcement officers and emergency support personnel.

The dangers faced by inmate crews are very real. In 2017, a female inmate firefighter died after she was struck by a boulder while helping fight a brush fire in Malibu.

Local officials have also reacted with alarm to state efforts to cut back the inmate firefighter program.

In June, Los Angeles County supervisors Kathryn Barger and Lindsey Horvath sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom urging him to continue funding the inmate firefighter program. The letter argued it is “crucial these hand crews continue to lend their support to our local firefighting efforts to ensure the safety of our fire-prone communities” and the program offers those who take part “the opportunity to rebuild and rehabilitate their lives.”

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