From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Aynsley O’Neill with Eduardo Herrera Jr., a professional firefighter in California.
The wildfires that burned entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles in January took a massive response from firefighters to start to get under control.
According to state officials, more than 16,000 personnel battled the blazes across southern California at the height of the disaster, and more than a thousand of those people are currently serving prison sentences. While incarcerated firefighters do the same work as their counterparts, they are paid much less, as little as $5.80 a day.
Eduardo Herrera Jr. served 18 years in prison, spent the final two of them as a firefighter, and is now a professional firefighter for the state of California. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
AYNSLEY O’NEILL: You were an incarcerated firefighter between 2019 and 2020. What is day to day life like for an incarcerated firefighter?
EDUARDO HERRERA JR.: I actually lived at a firehouse; my title was institutional municipal firefighter. What you would see in your normal municipal firehouse was very much the day to day, other than me being incarcerated, obviously. I got up in the morning, did my training, did my six minutes of safety and weather, and then started my day running calls or just doing training.
O’NEILL: Is that the standard setup now, or was yours a unique case?
HERRERA: In the state of California, every adult prison has a firehouse to service the prison system itself, but some also have what we call a mutual aid contract. In my case, mine had a strong mutual aid contract with the county to service the community where you’re housed at. To be clear, that station is outside the prison grounds.
O’NEILL: We’re talking about this in terms of wildfires. But was that the majority of calls that you were taking, or were there other types as well?
HERRERA: For the most part, it’s a lot of medical calls, but there’s definitely a balance between vegetation fires, wildland fires, vehicle accidents, residential structure fires, rescues. So depending how the season goes or how the call volume is, it can vary.
O’NEILL: How did you become involved in this program in the first place?
HERRERA: I started with requesting to be there. I had to go through a vetting process, apply, and then go through an interview process with the captain of the firehouse. Upon completion of the interview, I was able to go through an actual testing process. It takes approximately two and a half months to three months, and you do the psychomotor skills, and then you also do the academic and curriculum part of it. Upon completing that, you can shadow. If you do not complete that, then you go back to the prison you’re housed at and you’re not in the program.
O’NEILL: There’s been a lot of discussion surrounding fair compensation with incarcerated firefighters, especially in the light of these recent wildfire outbreaks in California. During your time, when you were incarcerated, how much were you paid for your firefighting work, and how did you feel about that compensation?
HERRERA: Since we were servicing the community and actually going into people’s houses to perform medical and mitigate those situations and actually being close to the community, I thought it would be more—but it was $56 a month. That was the max I would make. It didn’t matter if I was running a residential structure fire, saving a house, or doing a CPR call. It did not matter. I was still going to make $56 a month.
O’NEILL: There are concerns about this low compensation, given the round-the-clock firefighting that is happening, especially with California opening the program up to inmates under 26. How do you respond to concerns about this?
HERRERA: We should be compensated a lot more than what we’re getting paid. Simply put, we’re doing the job, and now the public is starting to see it, because we do save property. We do save lives. How can you put a price on that?
At the end of the day, you do it because you believe in yourself. You want to demonstrate that you’re not defined by your crime. But let’s be realistic: the amount of pay that you’re making is really nothing compared to a [non-incarcerated] individual who does the exact same thing. Not only that, he gets a pension, gets great medical service. Incarcerated firefighters are exposed to smoke inhalation, and we’re on the front lines, so those health issues affect us directly. Being in prison shouldn’t be a death sentence, you know. There should be some compensation in regards to that, because when you are released from the program, there’s a likelihood that you have some health issues moving forward.
O’NEILL: As I understand it, you were trained to be a firefighter while incarcerated, and then after release, you had to undergo the same training all over again?
HERRERA: That is correct. As an institutional municipal firefighter, all the training that I did there, I did it all over again when I went to the Ventura Training Center. But as far as the job itself, it’s the same. You get the exact same wildland training as firefighters who are in fire camp, because you’re already doing the job. Just with the training that I had, I could have done the job when I came home. But the one thing I will say is most important, is invaluable, is the experience. I had more experience than some of these firefighters that are out now, who are 18- or 19-year-olds. I had 14 structure fires under my belt, vehicle fires, countless CPRs, medical calls and wildland fires, and was already doing the job.
One call that I ran, saving a residential structure fire, pulling up, seeing it on fire, extinguishing the fire—but finding out afterwards it was a correctional officer’s house, and them coming to me and my partner and shaking her hand and saying, “Thank you for saving our house.” So these are the things that we’re capable of doing.
That, in itself, demonstrates that we can do the job. Who better than individuals who were previously incarcerated, who want redemption, who want to prove themselves? We are one of the hardest workers out there, and we’ve demonstrated it time and time again, consistently.
O’NEILL: There’s a noted connection between personal history of trauma and incarceration. And then on top of that, being exposed to wildfires is traumatizing in and of itself, not to mention actually fighting these fires. So that’s trauma on top of trauma. How do you and your fellow former inmates or the current inmates cope with the mental health aspect of this?
HERRERA: Great question, and I think that that is one of the biggest challenges for me. I did a lot of work prior to going to the firehouse, before I even started running calls and fire calls, so I developed coping skills, resiliency. However, there is a lot of trauma when you see things and experience that, as far as running wildland fire calls or just calls in general. When you see these things, you’re taking them in, and they’re just there. And if you don’t know how to process them, eventually they come out.
Addressing mental health is very important. And we don’t, unfortunately. In the fire service or as an incarcerated firefighter, there’s a stigma that goes with mental health. A lot of people don’t ask for help. It is so important to address these issues, because upon coming home, just something like the smell of smoke or hearing the sirens can trigger it, you know?
O’NEILL: What do you want people to know about either incarceration, generally speaking, or specifically the experience of incarcerated firefighters?
HERRERA: It makes me think about, I’m paraphrasing here, but a quote by Dostoevsky where he says, “You can tell a lot about a country by how it treats its prisoners.” The way I look at it is, well, how does it treat its heroes? Because an incarcerated firefighter is now deemed a hero. We’re no longer defined by a mistake that we’ve made. We’re going to come home.
Ninety percent of the population who are currently incarcerated are coming home. What kind of people do you want them to come home to? Do you want…opportunities for programs or classes so they can come home as better people? I would say, for the general public and individuals that are now experiencing this to think about that because the key to it is this one word: hope. We all want hope and hope for change, right? For myself and for individuals who have been incarcerated, that’s what allows us to survive and move forward: hope.
O’NEILL: We’ve talked a bit about the concept of redemption and change as it relates to this program. What kind of support is needed from the wider world when these formerly incarcerated firefighters and these former inmates, generally speaking, are coming home?
HERRERA: One of the biggest ways you can support us is by changing laws. Our words are validated by our actions. If people really want to create change, they have to be willing to show up. Showing up in the polls, when they see something that’s an injustice, see something that’s not right, is an action to change those laws, because you guys are our voices. We don’t have a right to vote.
What I would like to see is changing those laws that don’t allow us to get paid what we should be getting paid, and allowing us to have the funding for classes and training so that if you are an incarcerated firefighter, you’re able to get accreditation since you’re already doing the job. Then when you are released, it’s a lot easier for you to transition into that job and become a career firefighter.
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