Hundreds of incarcerated people are among the first responders battling the devastating flames, the Washington Post reports. Almost 400 inmates have been deployed to respond to fires in and surrounding Los Angeles County, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

The deadly conditions are “unprecedented,” according to Los Angeles County Police Department sheriff Jim McDonnell. Experts say unchecked global warming is to blame. “Climate change is increasing the overlap between extremely dry vegetation conditions later in the season and the occurrence of these wind events,” according to UCLA researcher Daniel Swain. 

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has faced criticism for not giving more funding to the fire department, with some residents saying it was too understaffed to fight increasingly common wildfires in the area.

Inmates fighting fires

As California becomes more primed for disaster, inmates are picking up the pieces—and earning low pay. About 30% to 40% of the state’s forest-fire fighters are incarcerated people, according to Mother Jones. Most of them are in prison for low-level felonies, according to the Post. 

California inmates reportedly volunteer to join the fire department to fight wildfires. “The conditions in California prisons are so terrible that fighting wildfires is a rational choice. It is probably the safest choice as well,” wrote Matthew Hahn, a former incarcerated firefighter.

Forced inmate labor persists in the U.S, an exploitation born out of a loophole in the 13th Amendment which excludes incarcerated people from the outlawing of slavery. This past year, California voted against an anti-slavery measure that would have outlawed forced labor in state prisons. These workers provide billions of dollars in labor for some of the top companies in the workforce. 

Inmates earn on average between 13 cents and 52 cents hourly, the ACLU wrote in 2022. After their pay scale was doubled in 2023, they still only received a maximum day rate of $5.80 to $10.24, Doug Melville writes for Forbes, adding that those who work for fire brigades are “not assigned without their consent.”

Members of the fire crew earn $5.80 to $10.24 per day depending on their skill set, according to CDCR’s post on the Conservation (Fire) Camp Program. In emergencies such as the current one, incarcerated firefighters are subjected to a 24-hour shift followed by a 24-hour rest period.

An active emergency calls for just an additional $1 hourly. That means in an active emergency, the lowest-skilled worker would get $26.90 for a 24-hour shift, according to the CDCR. That breaks down to just over a $1 per hour.

Incarcerated firefighters could be subjected to the worst of the fires’ blaze. Compared to professional firefighters responding to the same incidents, they are more than four times as likely to incur object-induced injuries and eight times as likely to be injured due to inhaling smoke, according to Time data obtained through FOIA requests.