Incarcerated Firefighters
Over the past century, the American wildfire season has escalated in intensity alongside climate change and short-sighted land management policy, making the effects of annual burns increasingly visible and impactful. Also more visible is the role of incarcerated labor in land management and disaster relief projects across the country. Since the 1940s, the Department of Corrections (DOC) and Department of Natural Resources (DNR) have cooperated to enlist incarcerated people in various jurisdictions to manage national forest land, work on fire prevention projects, and face summer wildfires head-on.
The burden of annual wildfires has grown over the last century and increased exponentially in the last few decades. In 1990, the United States spent $390 million fighting wildfires, and in 2021, the nation spent $2.3 billion (about $7.1 per person in the US) - a nearly 6-fold increase over a 30-year period. These skyrocketing land management costs have incentivized the creation and expansion of incarcerated firefighting crews in states across the U.S. At least 15 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming maintain fire crews of incarcerated people deployed seasonally to subdue wildfires. Even in states without a formal incarcerated firefighting program, emergency planning documents reveal that most states reserve the right to deploy incarcerated labor in emergencies. This policy is noted in 30 states, including 10 without any current incarcerated firefighting programs.
The use of incarcerated labor for American public works is rife with historical and ethical complexities. The demographic composition of American prisons targets Black, Indigenous, and Latino men, disabled people, and people living in poverty. While in captivity, incarcerated people have limited opportunities for personal development, reentry planning, and community integration, and little agency over their time and labor – reinforcing preexisting institutional inequities. While all firefighting programs for incarcerated people in Washington state claim to be voluntary, incarcerated people can face consequences for refusing to work, including disciplinary action like solitary confinement, increased sentences, and loss of privileges. This is also true in other states with incarcerated fire crews.
A primary incentive for incarcerated labor is financial. Because incarcerated people are not paid the legal minimum wage, often making around $1 an hour—and in some jurisdictions like Georgia, no money at all—incarcerated labor is used to subsidize emergency response plans in states without adequate planning, funding, or resources. Despite being employed for the same duties, responsibilities, risks, and expectations as non incarcerated people working in wildfire management, most are paid a paltry wage and have little agency over their work. Because of the 1977 Supreme Court case Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union, incarcerated people are not allowed to unionize or collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions, making them exceptionally vulnerable to forced, coerced, and exploitative labor.
State regulations vary, and, despite incarcerated people working in fire crews since the midcentury, most programs have little public visibility and are subject to little public scrutiny. Of all states that operate such programs, only Oregon and Colorado were able to provide data on recidivism rates for their firefighting programs. In Oregon, from 2015 to 2018, fire crew participants were arrested at a rate 17 percent lower than the general incarcerated population, and re incarcerated at a rate 2 percent lower than the general incarcerated population. It is important to note that fire crew programs pull from low-security prisons and select for participants with good behavior and standing—meaning participants are at lower risk of recidivism than the general population before program involvement. The stated purpose of Washington State DOC work programs is, “to provide the opportunity to develop good work habits, expand work skills and abilities, work off ordered community restitution, and provide a service to the community,” but without follow-up data, it is difficult to gauge the accuracy of these claims or the success of the programs for participants.
Once released, many incarcerated firefighters find themselves ineligible for urban firefighting jobs because of their criminal record. Despite the purported job training and post-release employment opportunities advertised by the DNR and DOC, many urban districts do not hire candidates with felonies on their records, and general discrimination and prejudice towards formerly incarcerated people pose a large barrier. While urban firefighting is generally a high-wage position with good benefits and job security, wilderness firefighting is seasonal; terms of work and pay are variable and inconsistent, and employees do not receive benefit packages. After release, most incarcerated fire crew members are unable to find steady and reliable work in firefighting or land management.
In 2021, the Washington State Legislature passed HB 1168, the 2026 Wildfire and Forest Health Bill, which, amongst other wildlife management and forest health policies, provided greater rights and protections to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated firefighters and significantly addressed key issues of compensation and reentry opportunity. The bill requires that incarcerated fire crews be paid at least the area’s median wage for their work when dispatched to actively fight fires. This means incarcerated fire crews in Washington State are paid the same wage as their non-incarcerated counterpart crews when in the field. However, during the off-season, camp crews are paid between $1.25 and $1.70 an hour for fire prevention and forestry tasks, which is less than 10% of Washington State’s minimum wage.
The bill also established the Arcadia 20 Hand Crew, Washington State’s first reentry employment program for formerly incarcerated fire crew members. The program is housed in Spokane, Washington and provides full time employment at standard living wages with comprehensive benefits and union representation funded by the DNR. Reliable, living wage employment significantly reduces recidivism, yet a third of formerly incarcerated people are unemployed, over seven times the national average. Those who do find employment make, on average, half of the wages of their non-system impacted counterparts. Unlike work crew programs operating only from within prison, this program demonstrates state investment in long-term career preparedness, reentry navigation, and reintegration with the greater community.
While the DOC and DNR overwhelmingly claim incarcerated firefighters report positive feelings and experience on fire crews, this disaster relief and land management plan is nonetheless contingent upon a continuous supply of captive bodies and reliable, even coerced labor. By creating systems that rely on high rates of incarceration and incredibly low, sometimes nonexistent wages, the incarcerated firefighter program enhances the financial advantages of incarceration to the state and state agencies, and reduces institutional motivation for other methods or restitution, release, or reentry. This disorganized system of contingency firefighting crews essentially creates an informal industry, an unpaid reserve of labor generated and maintained by the American carceral state.
Authored By: Sophie Belz
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Sources and Additional Reading:
BBC News: Team of former prison inmates on frontline of Spokane wildfires
Forks Forum: Remembering “Honor Camp” experiences
MIT Libraries: 'Burning Issues': Incarcerated Firefighting Programs in the U.S.
Modern American History: The Specter of Waste: Incarcerated Bodies, “Healthy” Labor, and the Production of Recreational Forests
Prison Legal News: Washington Prisoners Prep for Firefighting Career After Release
Real Change: In Washington state, incarcerated firefighters are on the frontline of climate justice
The Digital Archeological Record: On Our Honor: Exploring Washington State’s Historical Use of Honor Camps in the Yacolt State Forest
The Historic Pacific Highway in Washington: Honor Camps and Day Labor
US Chamber of Commerce: The Workforce Impact of Second Chance Hiring
Washington Department of Corrections: Work Crews
Washington Law Files: CERTIFICATION OF ENROLLMENT SECOND SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1168 67th Legislature 2021 Regular Session
Washington State Department of Corrections: Fire Crew: DNR Arcadia 20 Transitional Hand Crew
Washington State Department of Natural Resources: Correctional Camps Program
WPLG Local 10: Incarcerated firefighters among those battling Washington wildfires
