The Hidden Economic Forces Behind California’s Use of Inmates as Firefighters

The wildfires sweeping across the Los Angeles region are decimating land property and taking lives. They are also reigniting the debate about whether forcing prisoners to work for a pittance is right.

More than 1,000 California inmates have been fighting the wildfires, a controversial practice that dates back to 1915 and results from a complex intersection of public safety, labor economics, and criminal justice.

Key Takeaways

• California’s inmate firefighter program saves the state millions in firefighting costs by paying incarcerated workers far below minimum wage.
• While inmates can earn time off their sentences and gain firefighting experience, they face higher injury rates than professional firefighters and receive significantly lower compensation for the same dangerous work.

How Many Inmates Are Fighting the L.A. Wildfires?

About 9,000 firefighters have been deployed to put out the L.A. wildfires. According to California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), just over 1,000 of them are incarcerated.

The CDCR says inmates who join the firefighting crews volunteer to do so and must meet strict criteria. Requirements include being physically and mentally fit, exhibiting good behavior, having eight or fewer years left in their sentence, being deemed a low-security risk, and not having been convicted of sex offenses or arson.

Why Does California Use Inmate Firefighters?

While California promotes the program as a path to rehabilitation, the economics tell a different story. L.A. Fire Department firefighters earn between $85,784 and $124,549 per year with benefits, but inmate firefighters receive just $5.80 to $10.24 per day, plus an extra dollar per hour during active emergencies. That’s far below California’s $16.50 per hour minimum wage.

The program helps fill critical personnel gaps, especially as California faces longer and more destructive fire seasons because of climate change. Inmate firefighters often take on some of the most challenging work—hiking into areas too remote for fire trucks or helicopters to reach, cutting fire lines by hand, and clearing brush to slow the fire’s spread.

This has broad implications: when states can rely on extremely low-cost inmate labor during emergencies, it potentially reduces the incentive to hire and properly compensate additional professional firefighters, affecting wages across the entire industry.

When Did CA Start Using Inmate Firefighters?

The first firefighting training camps in California for incarcerated individuals were sanctioned by the government in 1915. The program was expanded in the 1940s as many firefighters were enlisted to fight World War II. Today, the CDCR, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and the Los Angeles County Fire Department operate 35 conservation camps in 25 counties.

What’s in It for the Inmate Firefighters?

Beyond the daily wages, inmates who volunteer for firefighting duties gain several benefits. Every day they spend on the fire lines, they earn two days off their sentence—a powerful incentive that can dramatically reduce their time behind bars. Firefighters also live in minimum-security “fire camps” rather than cells, eat better food, and work outdoors.

The experience can provide valuable career training, though the path isn’t always smooth—California has recently worked to make it easier for former inmate firefighters to get hired professionally after release, but that avenue had been mostly closed to inmates in the past.

However, inmate firefighters are more than four times as likely to suffer injuries from falling objects compared with professional crews and eight times more likely to be hurt by smoke inhalation. Since 2018, four inmate firefighters have been killed on duty.

Still, many former inmates say the program gives them something prison rarely offers: dignity. “Sometimes we would stay at a fire for two or three weeks, and when we left, people would hold up thank-you signs,” former inmate firefighter David Desmond wrote in an essay for the Marshall Project about his experiences. “No one treated us like inmates; we were firefighters.”

The Bottom Line

In an eight-hour shift, inmates assigned to an emergency would earn a maximum of just over $18 per day and are less likely to complain if they get hurt or work longer. A regular firefighter, on the other hand, costs a minimum of over $300 per day, highlighting a broader challenge in emergency services: balancing tight public budgets against the need to maintain a skilled, fairly compensated firefighting workforce —especially as climate change makes wildfires more frequent and severe.