Michael Nigro/Sipa USA via AP Images
Inmates from California’s prisoner firefighter program are seen on January 14, 2025, in Los Angeles. About 1,600 inmates statewide do this work and live outside of prison in fire camps.
Last fall, California voters rejected Proposition 6, which would have brought an end to modern-day slavery in the state’s jails and prisons. Not even three months later, more than 1,000 incarcerated Californians stood on the front lines of the fires blazing through Los Angeles, risking their lives for minuscule pay.
Under the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which banned slavery in the United States, involuntary servitude “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” is sanctioned as a legal exception to the general prohibition. A movement at the state level to close the loophole for prison labor has had some success.
Forced prison labor is banned in eight states, leaving California behind the times. If Prop 6 had passed, incarcerated people would still have the option to work while in prison, but would not be punished if they refused to do so. According to an ACLU report, over 65 percent of the 1.2 million people held in America’s state and federal prisons do some form of work. That includes almost 65,000 incarcerated workers in California alone, 1,600 of whom work in wildland fire camps.
In California, not every incarcerated person is eligible for a job as a firefighter, and unlike other job assignments within the prison system, signing up for firefighting is voluntary. Eligibility for the role is tough. Participants must have the lowest security classification, eight years or less remaining on their sentences, and cannot have a conviction for a second offense. Those who are selected for a firefighting role live in one of the state’s fire camps, which are minimum-security and outdoors. When a fire or other natural disaster flares up, these firefighters are deployed to the scene.
Since the role is voluntary, some see it as a better deal than other forms of prison labor. In a thread on Bluesky, Matthew Hahn, a formerly incarcerated firefighter, explained some of the role’s nuances. Incarcerated firefighters earn “time served” credits and are eligible for earlier parole, says Hahn, who himself went home 18 months early due to his firefighting service. Fire camps are a world different from the traditional prison facilities that these firefighters would otherwise be housed in. According to Hahn, there are no walls or armed guards at the fire camps. Firefighters hike and run in the mountains and can have picnics outdoors with their families on visiting days.
“The fire camps remain the most humane places to serve time in the California prison system, and it is the only program that offers full expungement of criminal records after release,” Hahn writes. “Folks don’t go to fire camp for the money, they go for the freedom.”
And how much do these firefighters make? Between $5.80 and $10.24 per day, with an extra $1 hourly while responding to emergencies. Like non-incarcerated firefighters, they often work 24-hour shifts, and then have 24 hours off back at base camp.
The pay is next to nothing, compared to the salaries at municipal fire departments like the Los Angeles Fire Department, where salaries can reach six figures. If it were an apprenticeship to one of those good firefighting jobs, that might be fine, but many incarcerated firefighters are unable to find firefighting work once they’re out of prison.
George Galvis, the co-founder and executive director of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), said arguments that firefighting is a good role within the prison system “is like trying to argue that there’s a more humane cage.” Galvis, who was himself incarcerated at the age of 17, described the conditions folks face in California’s prisons. “In prison yards, you see people get stabbed, people get jumped. Correctional officers are constantly abusing and beating [people] up,” he said. “So, you know, when you give someone … the opportunity to be outdoors instead of the concrete cave with iron bars, of course people are going to take that opportunity.” He isn’t swayed by the fact that firefighting is a voluntary role: “There really isn’t a lot of choice when you’re not provided with very many choices.”
Galvis explained that opportunities for incarcerated firefighters to continue on to a role in a municipal fire department are highly limited. It’s much more likely for a formerly incarcerated firefighter to continue on to a role with CAL FIRE or the United States Forest Service, which pay significantly less than their municipal counterparts. Still, some programs that help formerly incarcerated firefighters access fire work, even the lesser-paying jobs, do exist. The Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), for one, has partnered with CAL FIRE on the Ventura Training Center, an 18-month program that trains formerly incarcerated firefighters to put them on a path to employment.
Galvis is skeptical of these sorts of programs. “I think one of the fundamental questions is, how many formerly incarcerated people have actually been hired?” he said. “Because there’s a distinction between being eligible to apply and then actual hires happening.”
Had California voters passed Proposition 6, many incarcerated people would still be fighting the state’s most deadly fires. But the state’s prison system would be far more just as a whole, and all incarcerated people, not just those eligible for firefighting roles, would be able to choose their roles (or choose to do nothing at all).
Despite the failure of Prop 6, the fight to end modern-day slavery in California is far from over. Galvis said that CURYJ and other restorative justice–focused organizations are already strategizing to bring the question up to Californians once again. Galvis sounded confident that a similar proposition will get on the ballot in 2026. He theorized that, after two years of the Trump administration, Californians will be pushed left on criminal justice issues and vote to end prison slavery once and for all.
Until then, tens of thousands of Californians will continue to inject value into the state’s economy without a true choice in the matter.
