Firefighters race to stop the fires continue to destroy Los Angelesputting their lives at risk as flames reduce entire neighborhoods to smoldering ruins.
There are several among them 950 inmates in the California prison system who help fight fires for about $10 a day.
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Protection (fire) camps program. allows incarcerated people to shorten their sentences by working as firefighters, which is not uncommon in the United States. He notes that they make up about 30 percent of the forces fighting wildfires in California Los Angeles Times..
“As of Friday morning, 939 Fire Camp firefighters were working around the clock cutting fire lines and removing fuel from behind structures to slow the spread of the fire,” the update noted California Corrections Instagram page.
Nearly 1,000 firefighters imprisoned in California are currently battling wildfires in the state, according to reports. Some have criticized the practice because of low pay for firefighters, but Royal Ramey, a former prisoner and co-founder of the Forestry and Fire Service Recruitment Program, says the program helps create career opportunities for prisoners after release.
But the program is not without controversy. Prisoners earn little for dangerous and difficult work, which critics accuse the state of doing exploitation of defenseless population. According to the department, inmates receive up to $10.24 a day and additional money for 24-hour shifts.
Firefighters from the Los Angeles Fire Department They earn between $85,784 and $124,549 a year, according to the department's website. Meanwhile, some also employ private firefighters wealthy property owners willing to spend as as much as $2,000 per hour.
At least 24 people died in the fires that started on January 7. Authorities said at least 12,300 buildings were damaged or destroyed.
Dangerously high winds are expected to resume in Los Angeles on Monday, potentially hampering efforts to extinguish persistent fires that have burned through entire neighborhoods.
“To all the people who don't think our formerly incarcerated brothers and sisters shouldn't be allowed to vote or live in your neighborhood, just remember who was on your hill saving your home,” an Instagram user commented on update posted by California Corrections.
“Los Angeles is being saved by the people they locked up,” another person added another post from California Corrections.
Complicated ethics
According to Smithsonian Magazinein recent years, four prisoner firefighters died in line service. One person was hit by a boulder, another was killed by a falling tree, another was killed by a chainsaw, and one inmate died of heart failure during a training hike.
In 2018 Time magazine. reported that inmates fighting fires are at greater risk of injury than career firefighters – more than four times as likely to suffer “object-related injuries” and eight times as likely to suffer smoke inhalation injuries.
Some people do questioned ethics from the decision to volunteer to the program, taking into account the benefits, which include a reduction in punishment and expungement of criminal record.
CDCR continues to increase the number of assisting firefighters in prisons @CAL_FIRE in southern California. As of Friday morning, 939 Fire Camp firefighters were working to cut fire lines and remove fuel to slow the fire's spread, including 110 support workers. pic.twitter.com/rkQu3hWXMm
“I understand the argument that can be made that the only reason people volunteer to go to fire camp to experience humane conditions is because the conditions outside the walls are inhumane, and that is probably true, and I understand that argument , in that sense it is insulting.” TikToker Matthew Hahna former inmate who worked for the fire department said in a recording last week.
But he added that it was still one of the highest-paid jobs in the prison system and said the camps “were the best place to serve a sentence in the entire prison system.”
“We gained more freedom when we were in Fire Camp, we were outside the prison walls. During the day we went out into the community and into nature,” Hahn said.
Other inmates in the program described it as a positive experience. In a non-profit essay Marshall Project, prisoner David Desmond called it “the best job I've ever had.”
“No one treated us like prisoners; we were firefighters,” Desmond wrote in a 2023 article.
Royal Ramey, a former inmate and co-founder of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, told CBC News Network the fire camp program has other benefits, including creating career opportunities for inmates upon release.
“You get better food, you get to visit people in public places, you get to live in a dorm, and you get to be out in the community doing different kinds of projects and you're entitled to time off,” Ramey said.
“But for me, it allowed me to pursue the career that I now love.”
How the program works
According to him, California's conservation (fire) camp program has existed since World War II Smithsonian Magazinealthough its roots in prison labor go back almost a hundred years.
CDCR, in partnership with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Los Angeles County Fire Department, operates about 35 so-called fire camps across the state. Two of the camps are intended for incarcerated women. All are considered minimum security facilities, – notes the department's website.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said fire crews and water trucks are being placed in strategic locations as officials prepare for what forecasters warn will be strong and dangerous winds.
Inmate volunteers must meet certain requirements to protect public safety. They must have the lowest security status and are ineligible for people convicted of rape or sex crimes, arson or those with a history of escape.
Most incarcerated fire crew members receive two days off their sentence for every one day they spend on the crew.
Similar programs exist in other states. in Washington, crew members learn how to perform prescribed burns, handle hazardous equipment, and ensure that contained fires remain the same.
AND British Columbia Fire Suppression Program enables specially trained prisoners to establish and dismantle fire bases, maintain inventory of supplies, maintain camp equipment and facilities, and test and repair equipment.
“Let's start working in prisons”
Still, as Marshall Project as reported Saturday, ethics are “complicated.”
Speech on an independent news program Democracy now on Monday, Los Angeles activist Sonali Kolhatkar said the fire camp program shows how “our spending priorities are so skewed.”
“Yes, it is true that our fire departments are seriously understaffed. So instead of training more people who are not incarcerated or, frankly, allowing people who are incarcerated to simply not be in prison… we are turning to working in prisons,” she said. .
“Trapped firefighters are trying to keep us safe, but they are part of the architecture of violence and are also its victims.”
But Joshua Daniel Bligh, in 2016 on the International Association of Wildland Fire website, he said his time spent in prison in Oregon allowed him to gain valuable skills and feel like he was giving back to society.
“When I feel the outrage and shock on the faces of contract crews who hear how little we get paid for their work, I remember that I could be sitting in a cell in a prison,” he wrote.
