Fires in Los Angeles: prisoners deployed to fight the fire

While California is fighting against fires which have ravaged the south of its territory since Tuesday January 7 and have caused at least ten deaths, a certain group of firefighters is proving to be essential in this fight: prisoners. The California Department of Corrections deployed 783 inmates to help 7,500 firefighters contain the flames.

In this state particularly affected by fires which are becoming more and more violent with the climate crisis, the prison administration manages 35 fire stations, where inmates are trained in fighting fires and help the authorities to intervene in the event of fire, flood or other disasters. These sites are considered minimum security facilities and house more than 1,800 incarcerated firefighters. They have represented up to 30% of the deployed force in the past.

Eight-day training

Fire stations recruit on a voluntary basis but not all prisoners are eligible. Only those who have less than eight years to serve are retained, and convictions for arson, murder, rape are criteria for exclusion from the program. Finally, candidates must be judged physically and mentally fit. Once recruited, the inmate undergoes eight days of theoretical and practical training, provided by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

With wages having doubled in 2023, prisoners are now paid between $5.80 (€5.65) and $10.24 (€9.98) per day, depending on their skill level. A dollar per hour is added when they respond to an emergency. Although paltry, these salaries are considered rather high for work “behind bars”. Prisoners also earn time credits: for each day spent on a fire team, their sentence is reduced by two days.

Inmate firefighters work in harsher working conditions than their counterparts and often risk their lives. According to a 2018 Time magazine survey, incarcerated firefighters are also four times more likely to suffer injuries than other firefighters.

Since the use of water lances is reserved for professionals, their mission is mainly to reduce the probability of fires spreading by cleaning nearby brush. The prisoners see it as an opportunity to practice a useful profession and regain self-confidence. Royal Ramey, a former inmate firefighter, told American public radio last July: “ when you are constantly told that you are a threat to society and suddenly everything turns around, and you become a hero by helping people in the community, it is one of the nicest feelings that I have never experienced in my life ».

Cheap labor

California has long relied on these prisoners to fight fires, the prison administration program having begun in 1915. It is therefore one of 14 American states which offer this alternative sentence to voluntary prisoners. Since 2020, a new eighteen-month training program for ex-inmates allows them to become firefighters and an accelerated procedure for expunging criminal records for former members of fire camps has been put in place in order to promote their reintegration.

But some inmates denounced the fact that they were trained more to fill labor shortages rather than to promote their reintegration. Most of them do not become firefighters upon their release, in particular because of their stigmatization as ex-convicts.

In a Guardian column in 2020, Amika Mota, a former detained firefighter, spoke of her disappointment: “ Despite my training, experience, and the fact that prison officials determined that I could help save lives in the community, I had no realistic way of returning to the same job after my release. Travel restrictions related to my parole closed my path to regular firefighting work ».

While Kamala Harris served as California Attorney General, her office repeatedly blocked efforts to reduce prison overcrowding, including by releasing non-dangerous inmates who had served more than half their sentences. In 2014, one of the arguments put forward by his team to justify this position was “ the significant impact such releases would have on fire station attendance, which would be dangerous as California faces a difficult fire season and severe drought ».