Graphic by Laura Zhang
California has experienced eight of the state’s largest wildfires in the last five years. To combat these fires, California has enlisted firefighters from out-of-state and sometimes other countries to fight these deadly wildfires. Another significant and often overlooked source of manpower against wildfires is the prison population. Since World War Two, California prisons and Cal Fire have run the Conservation Camp Program. The Conservation Camp Program trains eligible prisoners to become firefighters as a source of rehabilitation. The inmates undergo one week of classroom instruction and one week of field training and exercises. After those two weeks, they are eligible to be in inmate firefighter crews. Cal Fire employs prisoners to do the “dirty work” in fighting fires; the prisoners create fire breaks, clear vegetation, and spend weeks at the front lines of wildfires. Fire breaks are critical to fighting wildfires. Unlike structural fires, fighting wildfires requires a strategy of containment. Digging fire breaks and creating breaks in vegetation slows down the rapidly expanding blazes and allows crews to start trying to put them out rather than minimize damage. Inmate firefighters have also been used to fight other risks.
Former inmate firefighter Amika Mota detailed her experiences as an incarcerated firefighter, stating that, “I spent two and a half years fighting wildland fires, responding to car crashes, and rushing to homes to extinguish blazes. There, I was trained to use the jaws of life tool to extricate victims from mangled cars. I learned to battle brush and structure fires and ran into harm’s way while keeping my crew members safe.” While doing this dangerous work, Mota was paid 37 cents an hour. Due to the long hours at the front lines, the prisoners are disproportionately at risk of being injured fighting fires.
Between June 2013 and August 2018, more than 1,000 inmates required hospital care and were four times as likely, per capita, to get injured than other firefighters. Due to their extensive periods at the frontlines, the inmates were eight times as likely to be injured from smoke inhalation compared to non-inmate firefighters. To make matters even worse, the inmate firefighters face these risks for a wage of up to two dollars per hour, which can go up to three dollars an hour for 24-hour shifts during peak fire season. In comparison, non-prisoner firefighters employed by the state earn around 39 dollars per hour. Despite these downsides, many inmates still see the program as beneficial. The Conservation Camp Program has two main benefits: it keeps prisoners busy and is an opportunity to give them experience for their future resumes. However, the reality of life after prison means the prisoners are often misled about the opportunities after they get out.
The state of California considers the inmates in the program as firefighters, but after they leave prison they find it hard to find employment. A majority of California’s fire departments require their employees to be EMT certified, a certification unavailable to most prisoners. EMT training gives firefighters the skills to be able to perform CPR and emergency medical treatment in the field. EMT certifications are not issued to people with two or more felony convictions, released from prison for drug offenses in the past five years, or who have two or more misdemeanor convictions related to force, threat, violence, intimidation, and theft. These restrictions limit nearly every ex-prisoner who was accepted into the Conservation Camp Program from being able to fight fires once they get out. In 2020, California passed AB 2147, a law to make it easier for ex-prisoner firefighters to get hired. The law allows ex-prisoners to petition the court to dismiss their convictions after completing their sentences to be eligible for EMT certification. As great as this may seem in theory, the lack of felony dismissals and a June 2022 court ruling restricted many prisoners from accessing this relief.
Inmate firefighters sit on the back of a firetruck on the Enterprise Bridge during the Bear fire in Oroville, California .Josh Edelson / AFP - Getty Images
The relief program set up in AB 2147 has been slow and ineffective. The number of petitions filed and granted is unclear, however it seems to be no more than 100. Regardless, the law set up to fast track the criminal record expulsions has been very unsuccessful. Many ex-prisoners have to go to court multiple times to even get a chance at their convictions being dismissed. In another setback, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected two men’s challenge of the regulation preventing ex-prisoners from being eligible for EMT certification. Therefore, the only path to employment after getting out of prison was to hope their convictions could be dismissed. Aside from the EMT certification requirements, other barriers stand in the way of ex-convicts becoming permanent firefighters.
Wildfires are a unique threat against humanity that have only accelerated due to climate change and inmate firefighters are a critical source of manpower against them. A combination of air and land power is key to slowing down the blaze before it can destroy communities. Not only do wildfires cause incalculable property damage and cause human deaths, but they have effects that show up later. Wildfires kill microorganisms and sterilize the soil which permanently alters the growing capacity of the land. Wildfires also increase the rate of runoff and erosion which can damage the surrounding water supply. Post-fire soil becomes water resistant which causes a higher amount of runoff than before.
We are facing the deadliest fire season California has ever seen and the lowest level of the number of federal firefighters in the state in years. The rejection of an important and willing source of manpower is incredibly misguided. California must create a more straightforward and fast-tracked program to ensure employment for all ex-prisoner firefighters who want to continue to fight fires. California must also raise the wages for the current inmate firefighters that face a disproportionate risk of injury while receiving small wages. A system setup for rehabilitation must do just that, rehabilitate. The Conservation Camp Program is set up as a rehabilitation program in name only; it treats prisoners as less than human and punishes them both in and out of the prison system. It furthers the alienation of prisoners from the rest of the world by dehumanizing them through unequal pay and justifying their exclusion from the real world. Prisoners face a form of double jeopardy through exploitation and punishment in the prison system and exclusion once they are out. AB 2147 was the first step, but there is a long way to go for the system to be set up to help those who put themselves at risk to protect us from deadly fires.
Edited by Thu Nguyen