From the Vault: Crew No. 7

Ear Hustle

Ear Hustle & Radiotopia

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.9 • 21.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

California relies on incarcerated firefighters to fight fires like the ones that have engulfed Southern California this month. But once these men and women are released from prison, they can have a hard time finding jobs on civilian firefighting crews. Back in 2020, Nigel and Earlonne spent time at a Ventura fire camp designed to help bridge that gap. In light of the recent fires, we’re sharing this episode again.

Thanks to Bay Salmeron, Andrew Morales, Levi Rosier, Barrett Brown, and Eric Kesselmark for sharing their stories. Thanks also to Michelle Garcia, Jeremy Brandt, and Michael Salas at the Ventura Training Center.

You can donate to Anti-Recidivism Coalition’s fund for incarcerated firefighters here, and listen to the Fire Escape podcast here.

This episode was scored with music by Antwan Williams and David Jassy.

Big thanks to Acting Warden Andes and Lt. Berry at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, Acting Warden Parker, Associate Warden Lewis, and Lt. Newborg at the California Institution for Women, and Warden De La Cruz and Lt. Williams at the Central California Women’s Facility for their support of the show.

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Ear Hustle is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, it's Nigel and Erlon here.
0:04.1	Since the fires broke out in Southern California last week, we've been hearing from a lot of our
0:08.8	listeners wondering about the role of incarcerated people who work as firefighters.
0:13.8	Yeah, and actually we were there on Tuesday, the day the fires broke out, right?
0:19.5	Right.
0:19.8	I mean, we had no idea how bad it was going to get.
0:21.9	Remember from the airplane?
0:23.2	As my plane turned to go like in the LAX, I'm looking.
0:26.4	I'm like, I can literally see the flames.
0:28.6	And I was like, ooh, that looked big, but I thought it was vegetation.
0:31.1	I didn't know it was actual structures.
0:32.7	Exactly.
0:33.3	So we were there just on Tuesday, and then we left to go inland to Chino. So we were actually very far away from it.
0:39.3	But while we were at the California Institution for Women, we actually ran into one of the women who's a firefighter inside.
0:46.3	And she was wearing her orange hookup, which basically signifies that you are part of the fire camp.
0:52.3	And, you know, she was waiting to see was some of her
0:54.7	unit going to get called up because they are kind of far from it, you know? Exactly. Exactly.
0:58.6	So thinking about her and thinking about the fires in, in L.A., got us thinking about a trip we made back in
1:05.6	2020 to this fire camp in Ventura. And we made an episode about that trip. Definitely. And this is a program
1:13.9	for people who had just been released from prison and they opted to spend, I think it was 18 months
1:20.2	while they're on parole to train to be a firefighter for Cal Fires. Exactly. And this is a really
1:25.8	tough choice for some of these guys because actually they could go straight home because they're on parole. But instead they were opting
	...

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