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Calif. inmates fighting wildfires can have records expunged and become firefighters

By Cox Media Group National Content Desk

"Extreme" Santa Ana Winds Spark New Wildfires In Southern California An inmate firefighter from Oak Glen Conservation Camp near Yucaipa, California sets a backfire during the Easy Fire on October 30, 2019 near Simi Valley, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

By Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law Friday that allows some prisoners to have their records expunged after they complete their criminal sentences in state facilities if they have helped fight the wildfires ravaging the region.

The move will help former inmates land jobs after being released from state and county prisons.

Not all prisoners are eligible. Those who have been convicted of murder, kidnapping, rape, arson or any felony punishable by death or life imprisonment cannot take advantage of the program.

The program “will give those prisoners hope of actually getting a job in the profession that they’ve been trained,” Newsom said Friday.

The expungement will also give prisoners who have helped fight fires the ability to apply for more than 200 occupations that require a state license, an opportunity lost to most people with criminal records, according to Assemblywoman Eloise Reyes, who authored the bill.

“These individuals have received valuable training and placed themselves in danger to defend the life and property of Californians,” Reyes said. “Those individuals that successfully complete their service in the fire camps should be granted special consideration relating to their underlying criminal conviction.”

California has been struggling in recent years to field enough inmate firefighters because of changes in state law that have reduced the number of lower-level offenders in state prisons. Court rulings also ended some of the incentives for inmates to risk their lives fighting fires when they could earn similar early release credits with less dangerous duties.

The shortage grew this year, as thousands more inmates were released early in a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus through prisons, pushing the number of inmate firefighters down about 30% from last year, The Associated Press reported.

According to law enforcement agencies, about 500 inmate firefighters were on the front lines of a fire that spread near Lake Oroville in recent weeks.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cox Media Group

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