Of the nearly 5,000 personnel who were assigned to the Gifford Fire, 300 of them were incarcerated inmates voluntarily doing the same dangerous work expected of any firefighter.
That’s what California Incident Management Team 8 Public Information Officer Rich Eagan said after observing them working during the 131,000-acre blaze in SLO and Santa Barbara counties over more than two weeks in early August.
“They all contributed equally, the inmates working with us,” Eagan said. “It’s tedious, hard work. You’ve got the two guys on the chainsaw, and then the rest of the guys fall in line and do everything else like our guys do. … They have the same duties that we do out here, which is to keep your equipment 100 percent ready at all times.”…