The West is burning, so California struggles to find help fighting its wildfires
A June memo from the U.S. Forest Service Chief stressed the policy and put it in the pandemic context, as a strategy to put fires out quickly to limit crews’ exposure to COVID-19 while in the field. That has meant crews are busy on almost every fire, even those that might be observed and allowed to burn. To Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of the Oregon-based group Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, it’s a misguided approach. “It’s not humanly possible to put out all fires,” he said. “We need to focus on the fires that really matter, to save lives and homes, and shift resources to them. The future is to safely manage wildfires, to steer them. You don’t need hundreds of firefighters to do that.”
They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen?
“The fire community, the progressives, are almost in a state of panic,” Ingalsbee said. There’s only one solution, the one we know yet still avoid. “We need to get good fire on the ground and whittle down some of that fuel load. You won’t find any climate deniers on the fire line.”
'Severe inhumanity': California prisons overwhelmed by Covid outbreaks and approaching fires
California’s raging wildfires have created a crisis at multiple state prisons, where there are reports of heavy smoke and ash making it hard to breathe, unanswered pleas for evacuation, and concerns that the fire response could lead to further Covid-19 spread.
More than half of California's incarcerated firefighters are under lockdown as coronavirus sweeps through state prisons, resulting in a shortage of crews in fire season
As more than 360 fires burn across the state of California, the coronavirus pandemic is creating a shortage of inmate fire crews to battle the wildfires.
Watching mushroom clouds from the beach in LA. Apocalypse...maybe not now, but soon!
There’s a heatwave in Los Angeles and much of California — something about a high-pressure system trapping the air and not letting it circulate. That, on top of global warming, means that heat records are being broken all over the place. Our crappy privatized electrical grid is having trouble handling the AC demand — and companies are rolling out targeted blackouts to dampen the load. And it’s only gonna get worse next week.
Climate Apartheid Is the Coming Police Violence Crisis
In a 2019 report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights warned about the possibility of climate apartheid: a world in which only elites are able to access basic forms of social protection while everyone else faces the devastating effects of climate crises.
Reformers Aim to End Prison Firefighters’ ‘Indentured Servitude’ in California
Brandon Smith was incarcerated in Wasco State Prison in 2012 when a correctional officer approached him about becoming a firefighter—not after prison, but during his time inside. Smith would, if he said “yes,” serve in what the state calls its Conservation Camp Program.
These California inmates risked death to fight wildfires. After prison, they’re left behind
When he was 17, Fernando Herrera saw a bleak future for himself. A life of gangs, violence, arrests and confinement trailed behind him. He wanted something more. While in prison, the Yuba County teen joined a program that would put him on a firefighting inmate crew at the Pine Grove Youth Conservation Camp in Amador County. As an inmate, he helped fight the Thomas Fire that destroyed more than 1,000 buildings in Southern California in 2017.
Fire-Engulfed California Short on Firefighters as Prison “Slaves” Under COVID-19 Lockdown
It is the height of California’s dangerous forest fire season. But despite blazes currently raging, the state’s fire department is dangerously understaffed. That is because many firefighters today are not the burly full time professionals of another era, but underpaid convict laborers risking their lives for pennies. Almost 40 percent of California’s firefighters are prisoners. But the state’s penitentiaries are themselves ablaze with COVID-19 outbreaks, leading to widespread lockdowns in what has become a routine for American’s dealing with competing crises.
California severely short on firefighting crews after COVID-19 lockdown at prison camps
As California enters another dangerous fire season, the COVID-19 pandemic has depleted the ranks of inmate fire crews that are a key component of the state’s efforts to battle out-of-control wildfires
San Quentin COVID-19 Outbreak Spreads To Susanville Prison, Threatens Inmate Firefighting Work Crews
SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) -- A new threat from the out-of-control COVID-19 outbreak at San Quentin State Prison, where nearly a third of the inmate population has become infected with the disease, came to light Wednesday during a state Senate hearing probing the handling of the crisis by corrections officials.