There was a list of criteria used for making the decisions about which camps to close and where to move them. Based on (not in any order) population, location, activity, how many camps in each particular unit, ownership of the camps and a couple others. The closing of camps doesn’t have to do with COVID but the reduction of inmates. The COVID just sped it up the last few months. Also Malibu only has 8? inmates I think. CIW and LA County are still making the desicion about keeping that camp as well.
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They could move the Rainbow folks there and keep that camp open for LA County.
That was always an issue with institution based camps, Cuesta, Los Robles, DeWitt Nelson…come to mind
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I think that’s a separate contract between LA County and CIW. It has nothing to do with Cal Fire. I was just adding Malibu into the conversation because it is still a female inmate camp that has been affected by all of the same stuff. I’m not sure about the male inmates in LA County. I’m just glad I don’t have to make those decisions!
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Correct
COVID is the convenient political excuse for current times. Prop 47 and AB 109 gutted our inmate population and has been an issue for over 3 years . It has been a hush hush don’t talk about it topic until covid gave a great excuse.
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I’m only gonna critique this once. California needs to restore it hand crew numbers back to the 400+ they had 14 years ago. reducing them down to 296 hand crews is not serving the citizens of California well. I seeing 100ac - 500ac fires taking 3+ days to contain, and my jaw drops. At Full force we would contained 1000 ac fires in the first burn period. What the hell is going on? If we need to make at minimum 10 free hand crews per Unit, then lets do so this fire season. Last year was awful in the size the fires got. There, Rant over.
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Seen a tweet about the #HeritageFire in #SanBernardinoCounty that calfire wasn’t assisting because they didn’t have enough crews to spare. I lost the tweet and I’m bummed because I’m not sure who posted it and if they’re solid or not but it was interesting.
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How do you propose to solve the demographic problem?
For every 100 people leaving the work force(fire, LE, Construction, Plumbers, Teachers, etc) only 80 are entering the work force.
Solve that problem and you can have your hand crews.
Until then, “you go to war with the army you, not the army you want”.
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Amen to that. We need a stong cadre of Firefighters everywhere.
Be Safe All.
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14 years ago, Cal Fires hand crews were 100% inmate staffed, other than the crew captain obviously. Now with lighter sentencing and often no prison time, if crimes are even prosecuted when a person is caught, there aren’t near enough inmates coming into the prisons let alone qualifying for camp.
Trying to make up for it with CCC and FF1’s, sorry there’s just not enough people that want the job.
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Cal Fire did assist with 2 engines, 2 crews, and a dozer on the Heritage.
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If your history of the California Conservation Camp program is only 12-20 years long, you may not be aware of the fluctuations in inmate population. 50 years ago the population was in decline and camps which used to house inmates were converted to CEC Centers. Names changed between Ecology Corp and Conservation Corp a couple of times. As “Law and Order” became the watch word inmate population increased and CCC camps were repopulated with inmates, CYA camps were converted to CDC and new camps were built. Also many new State and private prisons were built. The cycle reversed. I don’t see any issues in CalFire’s filling positions. It may impact other agencies as they struggle to meet the pay and benefits of CalFire, LAC and other large LG departments. So lets all just take a chill pill and enjoy what we have left of “non fire” season and stop looking for problems that don’t exist yet. JMOHO
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Ty! Like I said I didn’t know the source and I didn’t share that info anywhere but here because I didn’t trust it. This is exactly why I am extremely picky about my sources and vet them for a long time before trusting them.
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I hope you are right. But with the national Unemployment rate below 4%, Over 11 million jobs unfilled in America, and a Labor Force Participation rate that is only 62.7%(in 2005 it was 68.1%) the competition for labor will continue.
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Been on the job for 37 years. I speak directly to the situation as it is right now and the camp I work at. Normally has 5 crews, has 1 now. Until last week, that 1 crew was down to 9 guys, so only available for in unit fires. In the long cycle, we’ll probably see a resurgence in total crew numbers, but maybe no inmates at all. In the short term as in this season, buckle your seat belts.
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So, sitting around the firehouse kitchen table on our 3rd pot of coffee since we hadn’t had rest for 36 hours, this convo came up with the lack of CDCR crews and our future capabilities…
With newscum running the shop and his prison reform “program”, we obviously have seen a significant decrease in crews and the overall detriment in fire suppression capacity.
The question that came up was…if there is a change in the California political arena and somehow the Republicans have a super majority come November…would that eliminate the current prison reform and potentially bolster up the camps?
Just thoughts.
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From a financial standpoint it would probably cost less to increase pay for FF1 fuels crews and CCC crews than to incarcerate more for crimes that may not warrant prison time. It cost approx. $106k per year per prisoner. Of course the work ethic and motivation part of the work force element is still an issue but money is a big motivator.
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The ruse of imprisoning people for pot in order to grow prison unions and sell concrete has ended, mostly. That a critical system used this for a key labor pool speaks to our moral and industrial dysfunction.
The history of prison labor in the USA is disgusting, and continues.
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“We need to put and keep more people in prison for a coerced labor pool instead of paying willing and motivated free workers better” is a hell of a mindset, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
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Everybody: Let’s please, as best we can, constrain our commentary to the topic at hand, which the shortage of crews and not wander into the wastelands of opinions and politics. Everybody has their personal views on politics and whether or not the use of CDCR inmates was a good plan or bad plan. The facts are that the CDCR crews are diminishing and will continue to erode.
It is far too early in the 2022 Season for the Mods to have to start taking action in what appears is going to be a very rugged year.
Appreciate it and please carry on, constructively
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