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More than 900 incarcerated firefighters were responding as of Friday to the fires in Southern California, according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials.
In a written statement earlier in the week, CDCR Secretary Jeff Macomber called the incarcerated workers an “essential” part of the state’s response. “Their commitment to protecting lives and property during these emergencies cannot be overstated,” Macomber said.
Generally, incarcerated firefighters work on “hand crews,” using hand tools to clear vegetation and create firebreaks that slow the spread of wildfires, whereas tasks like operating fire hoses or spreading flame retardant are left to professional firefighters. It’s grueling manual labor, and during emergencies, it’s common for firefighters, incarcerated or not, to work in 24-hour shifts.
Firefighting is voluntary for incarcerated people. The work can be dangerous, and even deadly, but is generally considered one of the most desirable prison jobs available in places where it is offered. It’s not uncommon to hear formerly incarcerated firefighters say that their time on the line was the most rewarding time they spent in custody, or even the most rewarding experience of their lives.
“Sometimes we would stay at a fire for two or three weeks, and when we left, people would hold up thank-you signs. People would bring pastries, sodas or sandwiches to us. No one treated us like inmates; we were firefighters,” wrote David Desmond in a personal essay for The Marshall Project in 2023.
Even those with positive feelings about their time on the fire line wrestle with the complicated ethics, however. Writing in The Washington Post in 2021, former incarcerated firefighter Matthew Hahn considered how “the decision to take part is largely made under duress, given the alternative,” of the violent confines of prison.
Nevertheless, speaking to The Marshall Project this week, Hahn said the program was positive for him. He worked as a wildland firefighter during the last three years of his incarceration in California and helped fight the Jesusita fire in 2009. It was meaningful work, and he got to serve much of his time living outside in nature. It also allowed him to earn time off his sentence — he was released 18 months early.
Historically, incarcerated firefighters have made up as much as 30% of the California wildfire force, according to the Los Angeles Times. Sentencing reforms have led to steady declines in the number of people incarcerated in the state, however, reducing the number of prisoners eligible to participate in work on the fire lines. Last summer, with only about half of the budgeted hand crews fully staffed, some in the state worried that the reductions could affect the state’s ability to contain fires.
Of course, there are ways to staff hand crews without recruiting prison labor, but few would be as cheap in a state that has faced profound budget deficits in recent years. According to CDCR’s website, incarcerated fire crew members make between $5.80 and $10.24 per day, and earn an additional $1 per hour when responding to emergencies, up to $26.90 over a 24-hour shift. That reflects a pay raise enacted in April, which roughly doubled the salary ranges for all incarcerated laborers in the state.
Legally, one of the reasons that the state can pay incarcerated firefighters around a dollar an hour for this dangerous and vital work is that under the U.S. and California constitutions, involuntary servitude is permitted as punishment for a crime.
California voters had the opportunity in November to remove this exemption from the state constitution. That would have opened the door to new kinds of legal challenges over working conditions for incarcerated people in the state, but the measure failed.
While the pay is low compared with wages in the free world, firefighter work is often the best-paying prison labor available, which is one reason that it’s sought after. Some firefighters told our colleague Christie Thompson in 2020 that the work has a higher degree of prestige compared to other prison jobs. Perhaps the most common reason people give for volunteering for fire fighting is being able to help people, give back to their community and make amends for mistakes in their past.
That’s how Anthony Pedro felt after his time as an incarcerated firefighter. “It’s so rewarding to be able to help people in their worst days,” Pedro said in an interview with The Marshall Project this week.
Pedro wanted to continue the work when he got out of prison in 2018. But despite his experience, getting a firefighting job with a criminal record is difficult. He spent months sleeping in a car, before finally finding a professional firefighting job in 2019. Two years later, he founded the Future Fire Academy, to help train and certify other formerly incarcerated people, so they wouldn’t face the same struggles. Some of his former trainees are fighting the fires in Los Angeles, he said.
Legislation passed in 2020 has made it easier for former fire crew members to get their records expunged and get firefighting jobs. But Pedro said the process can still be difficult and time-consuming.
While the work is rewarding to many, it is inherently dangerous. A 2022 Time Magazine analysis of public records found that incarcerated firefighters suffer higher rates of some kinds of injuries than professional firefighters, including object-induced injuries like cuts and bruises, and smoke inhalation. The analysis found that professional firefighters are much more likely to experience burns and heat-related injuries.
Amika Mota was a firefighter in California’s Chowchilla prison before her release in 2015. She said fighting wildfires was not the bulk of their duties, which also included putting out structure fires and responding to overdoses or car crashes.
“It was much more usual for me to be prying a car open and pulling a body out,” she said.
Now the executive director of Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition — an organization of currently and formerly incarcerated people that advocates for better conditions — Mota said that during the two and half years she was an incarcerated firefighter, she and the other women often relied on heavily used equipment, such as using hand-me-down goggles that no longer sealed properly. But few were willing to complain too much or refuse job assignments, she said, in part because they feared facing punishment or being taken out of the program.
“Every single firefighter that is out there right now, I’m sure they’re proud to be there,” she said. “But also every single one of those people has signed away their rights for any sort of compensation if they die on the fireground. They’re putting themselves on the frontlines without really understanding the health impacts long-term.”
