California relies heavily on incarcerated firefighters to protect life and property, but pays them a pittance. Recently, a major grassroots and legislative push to improve working conditions for incarcerated firefighters enjoyed some success. On October 13, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 247 into law, raising their base pay and doubling the amount by which they can reduce their sentences.
The bill, which does not bump wages up far enough, was part of a package of seven bills dubbed “Firefighting to Freedom,” and one of five signed into law. In spite of falling short, their passage was a hard-won battle on behalf of a demographic often left behind.
The deadly fires in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades in early 2025 underscored just how significantly California’s statewide fire department, known as CAL FIRE, relies on people who are trapped behind bars for most of their day. According to Simone Price, director of organizing at the Center for Employment Opportunities, “For the past several wildfire seasons, about a third of the emergency responses that were deployed to fires were currently incarcerated people, and this past January, those numbers were 40 percent.” In a state plagued by increasingly frequent fire-related events in a warming climate, it’s likely that number will remain high.
In spite of the historic 2020 racial justice protests that called for a reevaluation of the criminal legal system, and in spite of California being considered one of the nation’s most liberal states, incarcerated people in the state continue to face dehumanization. Voters in 2024 failed to pass Proposition 6, a ballot measure that would have ended forced servitude within prisons.
The bill, which does not bump wages up far enough, was part of a package of seven bills dubbed “Firefighting to Freedom.”
Incarcerated firefighters often risk their lives to keep others safe. Sergio Jesus Maldonado is a formerly incarcerated person who worked as a firefighter while serving his sentence. In a phone interview, he shared an experience he had in early 2023 saving a family home in Butte County from an inferno shortly before he was released.
The door to the home was jammed and had to be axed down. Although he was wearing gloves, heat seeped through, leading to second-degree burns on his hand. He said it was worth the injury, however, as two young children had passed out in the corner of a room of the burning house.
Sensing that a large beam that was burning was about to fall, Maldonado jumped into action. “My instincts had kicked in, and I hurried up and ran … to try to grab them and put them on my back, both of them on my shoulders. And by doing so, I made it just in time before the beam fell,” he said.
The parents of the children Maldonado saved told him, “We owe you our life,” and asked, “Is there any way we can repay you?”
“I said, ‘no, no ma’am,’” recalled Maldonado. “It is my duty. It’s my duty to save lives.”
In addition to the satisfaction of saving lives and homes, firefighting jobs are popular among incarcerated workers in part because they help shave time off their prison sentences. But obtaining such jobs is tough. Maldonado recalled he had to go before a board comprising representatives from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and CAL FIRE for approval in order to begin a rigorous training program.
“We’re gonna give you one shot and one shot only, but if you mess up, you can’t go to camp,” he recalled members of the board telling him. After his training was completed, CAL FIRE recruited him to work on fire crews and enabled him to reduce his sentence to about two-thirds of its original term. “The only downside to it was I was getting paid up to $2.65 [an hour],” he said.
Across all prison vocations, the average pay rate is an appallingly low 8 cents an hour.
For life-risking work, Maldonado recalled that he was paid a bit more. “The only time it would go up to $5 an hour [was] if it was a really dangerous fire where it spread through towns and you had put a town out, or if you had to camp at that wildfire,” he said.
Dortell Williams, who is serving his 37th year in the California prison system with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, pointed out that across all prison vocations, the average pay rate is an appallingly low 8 cents an hour. This, he says, ought to be viewed “in contrast to when we … pay market rate prices for necessities like toothpaste and soap and those types of things.”
Freed in April 2023, Maldonado lobbied for the passage of AB 247 with groups like the Center for Employment Opportunities and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition. “A lot of us really worked hard and risked our lives,” he said in a phone interview. “We need that higher wage. We need that change of the narrative of what society tries to put on us.”
According to Williams, “You have people [in prison] who are allowed to work in industries, but they’re still exploited. Their labor is exploited so much more than it would be if state laws were to regulate it like they are on the outside.”
Indeed, organized labor has helped push the base wages of California’s workers up to $16.50 an hour, one of the highest minimum wage levels in the nation and still well below a living wage. And nonincarcerated firefighters with CAL FIRE earn more than $50 an hour on average. So why aren’t incarcerated firefighters paid more?
“If you get hurt really, really bad, like where you can’t perform any duties, they send you back to prison.”
In its early stages, AB 247’s author, Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, hoped to raise wages for incarcerated firefighters to $19 an hour. But in the end, state legislators amended the bill to meet the federal minimum wage of only $7.25 an hour.
“So, $7.25 an hour is nowhere near where we believe is just, or even fair for folks who are currently incarcerated, and frankly anyone doing such a dangerous job,” said Price.
Her explanation for the ongoing disparity between incarcerated and nonincarcerated firefighters is that “incarcerated labor, which has a history of racial injustice and discrimination, has never been about actual pay or compensation.” Instead, she said, it has been considered “a task” because, for incarcerated people, “any level of compensation is considered a privilege and not necessarily considered a right.”
Maldonado saw the passage of AB 247 as “bittersweet,” after the base wage was brought down to $7.25 an hour. “I was just happy enough to get the wages higher than it was. But it is also kind of disappointing because a lot of people, they’re risking their lives.”
Incarcerated firefighters don’t have the same access to medical care as nonincarcerated firefighters do. At the fire camps where Maldonado was based while working, he explained that “if you get hurt really, really bad, like where you can’t perform any duties, they send you back to prison.” After that, “you would have to start the process [of training] over again.”
Still, he declared the passage of AB 247 a victory, because, in addition to the modest wage increase, it doubles the amount of time people can shave off their sentences.
Furthermore, part of the package of bills Governor Newsom signed into law is SB 245, which makes it easier for firefighters who are freed to expunge their records and obtain employment. “It’s gonna impact their life, because now it’s not just working for freedom,” said Maldonado. “It is working for a career. It’s working for a retirement. It’s working to feed their kids and to help their family.”
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