Fighting Fire for Freedom

Image from the cover of Jaime Lowe's new book, *Breathing Fire*. [Photo courtesy of MCDbooks.com]

Fighting California’s wildfires is a dangerous job, but to some incarcerated women firefighters, leaving prison is worth it.

Journalist Jaime Lowe interviewed women who participated in the California Conservation Camp program – a system of 44 campsites, known as fire camps, designated for wildfire firefighters – while incarcerated in California’s state prisons. She told their stories in her latest book, Breathing Fire. The book is an expansion of Lowe’s 2017 article for The New York Times Magazine about Shawna Lynn Jones, who died in 2016 after fighting a fire in Malibu, California.

“The fire camps are a really nuanced story,” Lowe told me over Zoom, “because the women all talked about how it was something that really challenged them. It gave them purpose. They felt like they were connected to their crews, and people they never would have been connected to. There was this positive experience with it.”

She continued, saying, "I was interested in this idea that women could be empowered as firefighters when they were imprisoned, but that it's a profession that is largely discriminatory. I was interested in this place where women actually were encouraged and successful at being firefighters. And yet it's this place where they shouldn't necessarily be.”

In our conversation, we explored the paradox of oppression and empowerment, and dug into the history of California’s fire camps. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

How do these fire camps work, and how did they come to be?

California was built on inmate labor and oftentimes [the state] arrested people specifically to have free labor. They would be auctioned off to landowners to either establish agriculture, or build roads. What started as road crews ended up transitioning into these fire camps. When many firefighters went off during World War II, incarcerated firefighters took over the responsibilities. One of the draws of participating in the firefighting program is that you would get days shaved off of your sentence. In the early ‘80s, three female fire camps opened up because of discriminatory practices. [Women couldn’t join the fire camps and didn’t have access to the same benefits.]

What is the process of how inmates are deployed at these fire camps?

It's considered a privilege by the corrections department to participate. The California Institution for Women has a forest training center. You have to qualify by psychological evaluation, you have only a three-week training and then you are sent off to [fire] camps, and you're a firefighter. One side of the camp is run by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation [CDCR], the other side is run by the fire departments. Once the women cross over, they're fully a fire crew. They have their own firetrucks. They get on the buggies, they are deployed to fires.

Could you walk me through some of the overlooked dangers or misconceptions of this work?

I think we're only just starting to talk about the mental toll that comes with being a firefighter, especially regarding climate catastrophe. There's a certain amount of mental fatigue. There's a lack of institutional support. When you put the fact that you're incarcerated on top of that, you're dealing with a population that has likely suffered from PTSD just from being in prisons. They had kids that they were separated from and worrying about, sometimes they were completely separated from any support system.

The training is essentially a week in a classroom watching videos, and two weeks of weight training. There's a fear of reporting injuries because you have to go back to the state prisons. So there's the risk of permanent physical damage.

The CDCR says that these men, women and juveniles volunteer to be firefighters. My feeling, especially after interviewing the women, is that when you're trying to escape from predatory behavior and violence, and there's this other option where you're in nature – you're outdoors, there are no fences and there's less of all of those conditions – it's not so much of a choice. It's really just the lesser of two evils because you're putting yourself at risk of death.

It seems like some women had very personal reasons for volunteering.

Whitney was in prison because of a drunk driving manslaughter conviction. She told me that she carried with her just endless guilt and mourning and devastation for what had happened. And she had the option to do this program called CCTRP, where she would have an ankle monitor and work in a Target and make minimum wage. But she chose to go to fire camp instead, because she felt like she had to give back and do this service. She's the only person in the book who ended up going into firefighting. She just finished her second helitack season, but she still feels completely dogged that she’s a convicted felon. She can't get an EMT license, so she can't work for Cal Fire. She can't work for municipal crews.

Where does prison abolition fit into all this?

It was so clear that the prison system is destructive. Paraphrasing David Fathi, from the ACLU National Prison Project, if these prisoners are able to walk around with chainsaws, one might question why they were in prison in the first place. I came to the conclusion that these fire camps were really great experiences with really virtuous and very compelling programs. The thing that simply is mistaken about them is that CDCR is involved at all.

What are some of the roadblocks for former inmates who want to go into firefighting in the free world?

They would never be hired by Cal Fire or by municipal crews because they couldn't get EMT or EMS licenses, and they'd have to wait 10 years after paroling. Starting this past January, AB 2147 was supposed to provide expedited expungement for formerly incarcerated firefighters. But you have to go through a fairly complicated legal system, a judge has to grant that expedited expungement and DAs have been challenging these expungements. And there's nobody monitoring and no data being collected as to who's actually benefiting from the bill, so we'll never know if it's really working.

From your interviews, what's the best way for people to show up in solidarity with incarcerated firefighters?

That's a great question because we're all complicit in this system, because we've bought into this idea that crime and punishment are a part of our society and that we are okay shipping people away, out of sight. I think the first thing to do is just read as many books as you can about prison, abolition, about what the reality is. I think writing to anyone who's incarcerated is always helpful. Be really vocal and active in terms of legislation to try and support people who are, like, working towards a different system, and maybe just breaking this one down altogether.