Firefighting Can Turn a Convict Into a Hero

The path from his Crip neighborhood to the great outdoors was roundabout. He carjacked, kidnapped and smoked crack. He never left the city and had no desire to progress beyond a life that was narrow on the streets of Compton, and narrower in the cells of San Quentin and Soledad.

Then, during a 40-month state prison sentence for drug possession, Jerry Kelly was handed a pick, assigned to an inmate firefighting crew and sent into a wide open world he had not seen in almost half a century of living.

It’s been a revelation.

“This is something I never knew. I’ve learned so much out here--about the mountains, about plants, about the wind. It’s fascinating.”

Now 47, Kelly calls himself a nature lover and imagines his teenage children’s response if he offered to take them hiking after his release: “Hiking? What do you mean, let’s go hiking? What is that?”

On a warm afternoon in this isolated canyon near Hemet in the San Jacinto Mountains, Kelly took a break from a day of hard training while other crews rested under the cottonwoods along a stream.

William Urciel, 24, ate a hamburger among the drifting spores and dragonflies. He could have had the day off. But the former 18th Street gang member from Cudahy came out to work anyway.

“I wanted to be out here and be a part of this,” he said.

Kelly and Urciel are among more than 4,000 inmates and wards of the court who fight wildfires across the state. In Riverside County, they come every spring to Bautista Canyon to be tested and to compete against other convict crews.

A day on the hillside gives a glimpse of a work force that gets little notice, despite its battling of raging fires that regularly focus international attention on California. In a culture of heroes and villains, how do you categorize the felons who save your home?

For less than $2 a day, the men, and some women, choose to slog through thorns, flirt with heatstroke and swipe wasps off their searing necks. They earn the big money only on days when they actually breathe smoke--up to $1 an hour.

It is a dangerous job. Five inmates have died in the last 10 years, including one who had a heart attack training this spring.

But the positions are sought after, and only a small percentage of felons qualify, according to the state Department of Corrections.

The only prisoners eligible for the job are those considered unlikely to try to escape or commit violent acts. The department insists that the Night Stalker won’t be roaming the woods with a government-issue pickax. Moreover, only inmates with fewer than three years left on their sentences are chosen. The department figures they’ll be less inclined to flee.

The state’s 41 conservation camps are run by the Department of Forestry. The inmates live in barracks in mostly remote settings with no fences or guard towers. They train with unarmed forestry fire captains who oversee and guide each crew during training and fires.

It’s a world away from concrete exercise yards and razor wire enclosures. Men who might be killing each other in the joint--skinheads, Crips, Bloods, Mexican Mafia members--work side by side.

“On the inside, you have to be affiliated,” said Kelly. “Out here, I have friends on this crew that were skinheads or Eme.”

He said rivals coming into the crew are told to swallow their pride and concentrate on the task at hand. And being in a neutral, unfamiliar environment makes it easier to work together.

The inmates wear 40-pound packs and heavy Nomex jackets, which breathe little better than a plastic garbage bag. Those assigned to do cutting--the sawyers--also wear leather chaps. They carry chain saws and cans of fuel.

On testing day, they march military-style out of the Department of Forestry truck for tool inspection, then hike up a 2,000-foot hill to begin cutting firebreaks through the brush. Each crew of 15 men tries to cut a longer swath of chaparral than its competitors.

Training on the hill high above the San Jacinto Valley, Urciel pushed through thickets of manzanita and greasewood. His chain saw spat out a stream of sawdust.

Forestry officials monitored his work as other inmates followed with picks and shovels, rooting up stumps. They dug trenches to keep what would be burning pine cones and yucca cores from rolling down the hill. “Keep your dime!” they shouted, drenched in sweat, reminding each other to stay 10 feet apart for safety reasons.

Urciel has fought dozens of fires since he was convicted of methamphetamine manufacturing two years ago. Last August, fighting a blaze in the Banning foothills, his captain tripped and began to roll toward a cliff. Urciel threw down his saw and jumped down the slope, tackling the forestry official and keeping both from going over the edge.

“I would have gone about 200 or 300 feet down,” said Capt. Greg Everhart. “He saved my life.”

Urciel hopes to join the Department of Forestry or become a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service after his release. “We work for a dollar a day, so I’ll be happy just to make minimum wage,” he said. “I like the rush of this job.”

Officials say ex-cons are occasionally hired for such work.

But some inmates who have joined the fire crews for the relative freedom have panicked when they faced a wall of fire.

To train for the ultimate nightmare, when a crew is overrun by a fire, the inmates must cut out a safety island in the brush and lie down in formation under fire blankets that cover them like pup tents.

By noon, Urciel’s crew had completed that exercise and was preparing to head down the mountain. As they lined up for the hike, the corrections lieutenant made a surprise announcement. For his act of bravery, Urciel was being given a year off his sentence and would be released the next day.

The inmate smiled, looking a little confused, and said “Thanks” while others congratulated him. On a day when everything was hypothetical, even the emergency radio calls, his moment of doubt was understandable.

On the way down one inmate stopped because of a cramp. As the others waited, a 48-year-old man passed out from heat exhaustion. Everhart managed to revive him after a couple of minutes.

Urciel helped carry the man down in the blazing sun.

During a midafternoon break, he said his work outdoors had caused him to rethink his priorities.

“I missed two years of my daughter’s life,” he said. “And it took this to notice that.”