Invisible workers: Prison fire crews save lives while incarcerated then left to fend for themselves once released

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https://news.yahoo.com/invisible-workers-prison-fire-crews-150400599.html


Yahoo News Video•August 28, 2020

There are currently more than 14,000 firefighters struggling to battle roughly 7,000 blazes in California, many working 24-hour shifts. Among those pushed to the limit, as this year’s fire season in California burns an area now the size of the state of Delaware, are approximately 3,100 inmates trained as wildland firefighters.

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MICHAEL THOMAS: When there wasn't a fire, we was probably getting a dollar a day. When there was a fire, we was getting $2 a day. It was bad, too. Like, food-- we would be out on these fires weeks at a time, months. Sometimes we wouldn't even come back to the prison for months. We were spending all our energy and time. And we'd come back exhausted, and they wouldn't give us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Something you would give to, like, an elementary school kid when he first gets to school, giving us those little things every single day.

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They actually had this program called the Ventura Program, which is a firefighter reentry program. So, you could, you know, leave parole and can go into the fire program and actually become, like, a-- a real firefighter with these guys. But there's so many, like, loopholes you have to do.

I did my application, and when I got out-- because you do the application 90 days before you go home. I did-- I made sure I was on top of everything. I got home, and these guys asked me, oh, did I turn in the application? I'm like, here's the start of their bull crap again. So I just kind of just felt unmotivated after that, and I didn't want to pursue it no more.

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FRANCIS LOPEZ: If you're a felon, you can't apply to be a city firefighter at all. And-- and then for me, like, I came home to a daughter, so I just had to get back right away. And-- and with that being said, it's-- it's hard because, I mean, I told her, I said, I'll do it definitely. I had no problem with it. I really liked the work, and I was actually really, really good at what I did.

But it's just like, there are no resources, and I feel like the least they could do is at least set up people with interviews. You know, we went through this program. We did all of this for communities. I mean, they're thanking us for being heroes and all of this. But when we get out, it's just we're the felons. And that's kind of what it always is.