A shocking number of
firefighters battling California's numerous wildfires are actually prisoners sometimes working for less than $2 a day. They're hoping to earn shorter sentences - and
they're saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
Somewhere between 30 to 40 percent of the state's forest firefighters, or nearly 4,000 people, are low-level felons from state prisons,
Mother Jones reported. Working in "Conservation Camps" set up by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the inmates are trained to clear brush that can potentially trigger a fire and also battle the flames when a blaze does occur.
In return, they make somewhere between $1.45 and $3.90 per day, according to the CDCR. They also have two days knocked off of their sentences for every day they work.
Speaking with KQED, inmate Cory Sills said that, despite sometimes having to work 24-hour shifts, he generally feels like the camps are a good thing, especially since prisoners are treated better than they are behind bars.
"There's an assembly where we have a formation in the mornings and it was like my second or third day and the lieutenant comes out and he goes, 'Look, we'll treat you like men first, firefighters second, and prisoners if we have to,'" he said last July. "That right there, that stuck in my head for two years now because now I have a chance to be treated like a man."
Comment: All over the world we are witnessing extensive wildfires, which in some regions have been described as "unprecedented". The wildfire season in the US has worsened dramatically in recent years and 2015 is set to be the worst yet.
Could some of these wildfires have been fueled from outgassing, then possibly 'sparked' by an increase in atmospheric electric discharge events, such as lightning strikes? A wildfire in Utah last week was attributed to being 'sparked' by an underground transformer exploding, according to fire officials. See also:
Study: Wildfire seasons are more destructive and lasting longer almost everywhere on Earth