FIGHTING FIRE WITH PRISONERS PROGRAM HAS INMATES CLEARING BRUSH.

Byline: SUE DOYLE Staff Writer

Images of raging wildfires usually include brawny firefighters, but behind the crews of heroes are teams of felons trained to pitch in to help battle the blazes.

For more than 70 years, the state has employed men and women considered low-risk offenders in California's prisons to step in as fires sweep through dried-out hills, scraggly fields and overgrown mountain tops.

Today about 4,000 California prisoners -- serving time mainly for substance-abuse problems -- hack away at dried brush with chain saws and hand tools to create perimeters around wildfires to prevent them from spreading. Then firefighters step in with hoses to put the fires out.

``I wish we had more facilities where we could accommodate more of them,'' said Michael Freeman, Los Angeles County Fire Department chief. ``We like to use them. We're always using them.''

Since the 1980s, a contract between the county Fire Department and the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation has existed. Last week the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors renewed an annual $8.3 million contract between the two entities for the next five years.

As wildfires hit the area, the Fire Department pulls on five crews -- about 320 prisoners -- who live year-round in guarded dormitories scattered from Malibu to Lancaster in secluded parts of local forests and canyons. Crews are called to scenes closest to where they live.

An all-woman crew from Malibu, for example, has been at this week's Santa Barbara County wildfire that now covers more than 15,000 acres.

Usually the crews fight the fires and return to their dorms, also in Acton, Azusa, Palmdale and a prison camp near Saugus in the Angeles National Forest.

But when large fires strike in other counties and take days to control, fire crews set up what looks like small cities around them where they sleep in tents, shower and eat.

Prisoners will work there anywhere from 12 to 24 hours straight and then return to the base camps for about the same amount of time, fire Battalion Chief Vince Pena said.

Earning $1 an hour, prisoners also get two days shaved off their sentences for each day they work on the crews. They also get extra food.

``It's a much-desired position to get out of the prison environment and get in the fire camp system,'' Pena said.

In order to join crews, prisoners must qualify and then pass training programs and physical fitness requirements. Sex offenders and arsonists can never serve.

As seasons change and the last wildfire is put out, fire crews continue their training but also work on other county projects, such as weed abatement.

When rainy season hits, they're often called on to build sandbag walls to prevent floods from spreading. As storms poured buckets of rain on Southern California last winter, crews hauled bags of sand around Venice Beach and at Santa Clarita's Polynesian Trailer Park -- two areas badly hit by the weather.

Most on the crews grew up in inner cities, among noisy buses, smoggy skies and tired-looking buildings. Their former lives are far removed from the rural settings they find themselves in now, among the coyotes, snakes and other wildlife.

``It can be a culture shock for some of them,'' said Terry Thornton, California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation spokeswoman. ``Many of them come from the inner city and were never in touch with nature.''

sue.doyle(at)dailynews.com

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