Father of Inmate Killed on Fire Lines Says Son Shouldn’t Have Been at Scene

The distraught father of an inmate killed last week while fighting a Riverside County blaze said Monday he does not understand why his son was at the scene in the first place and demanded efforts by the state “to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Victor Ferrera, 22, was one of two people killed in last week’s rash of Southern California fires. Fifteen fellow inmate-firefighters from the Bautista state correctional camp in Hemet and a state fire supervisor were also injured, three of them seriously, when a sudden change in winds trapped them briefly in a sea of fire about 20 miles from their Riverside camp.

State forestry and corrections officials said the Riverside accident--responsible for more injuries than any of the other fires last week--is under investigation, with a full report expected this week.

“Why did they send those guys up there, with little shovels and those big flames, and tell these kids to put out the fire?” asked Jim Ferrera, the victim’s father. “There are no dwellings there, nothing to save.”

But state officials defended the program that now allows 3,600 low-risk inmates around California to volunteer for firefighting duty at $1 an hour.

“This program is one of the most effective we have,” said Christine May, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections in Sacramento. “The inmates are well trained and well supervised, and they do work that would normally cost local governments far more than the cost of the program.”

Ferrera was the second inmate to die fighting a fire since the program was instituted in 1946, state officials said. Another inmate died battling a blaze near Big Sur last year, they said. Inmates who volunteer for the program must take two weeks of basic firefighting training, and receive one day off their sentences for each day spent on the fire lines or engaged in other conservation work.

Jim Ferrera, who lives in Fullerton and works at the Long Beach-Los Angeles harbor, said he is not convinced that the program provides adequate training and supervision for the inmates. He and his attorney said they are considering a wrongful-death action against the state.

Victor Ferrera is to be buried today. Flags at state corrections conservation camps will be flown at half staff, but his father said the family declined an offer by the state to escort them to a memorial service at the Bautista camp, where Victor Ferrera had been held since last year after a parole violation. He was scheduled for release in four months.

According to state corrections officials, he was initially incarcerated in 1988 for assault with a deadly weapon after he tried to steal a car from its driver at knifepoint.

On the state’s offer, Ferrera said: “I don’t want that. It just didn’t set right with me.

“He was a good kid,” Ferrera added in a brief telephone interview. “My family’s pretty well shook up. We’re going through hell right now, and I don’t imagine we’ll ever get over it.”

State officials said the Ferreras will be eligible for financial compensation to cover the cost of the funeral.