National Park After Dark - The Incarcerated Women Fighting California’s Fires: Santa Monica National Recreation Area

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Across California, incarcerated women are sent to the frontlines of wildfires, risking their lives for a chance at reduced sentences and a small paycheck. On Malibu 13-3, an all-women fire crew, the work was brutal, the stakes were high, and the bond between crew members ran deep. When a falling boulder killed one of their own, it exposed the reality behind the program, the risks, the lack of protection, and the lives forever changed in its wake. For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodes For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials: Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdark Support the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to this week’s partners! Become a Fora Advisor today at https://www.foratravel.com/npad If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at https://www.mintmobile.com/npad Born from over a decade of longevity research, OneSkin’s OS-1 Peptide™ is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code NPAD at https://www.oneskin.co/NPAD Give your cat the food they deserve with Smalls. High-quality ingredients, no weird fillers, and it’s delivered right to your door. Head to smalls.com/NPAD and use code NPAD at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The very first known woman firefighter in the United States was a black woman named Molly Williams. It was back in New York City in 1815 and she was a member of the Oceanus Engine Company number 11 and worked side by side with male firefighters. Legend has it, she wore a calico dress and a checkered apron when she helped pull the huge water pump through deep snow to extinguish fires. She was such a hardworking team player. Her crew even gave her the nickname, volunteer number 11. They like to say that Molly was quote, as good a fire laddie as many of the boys. A children's book has even been written about her. But an essential part of her story is often overlooked.

Molly Williams was enslaved. She didn't choose to risk her life fighting fires. She was brought to the firehouse by the man who enslaved her and made her do the work. That legacy of forced labor and firefighting hasn't entirely disappeared. Today, as wife, wildfires become more frequent, destructive, and unpredictable, there is no state that utilizes the prison system for their inmate fire crews more than the state of California. To meet the need of a year-round fire season, California uses inmate fire crews who make up roughly 30% of the state's firefighting force. These individuals can volunteer for the program, but they are paid as little as $1 an hour plus a few dollars a day to perform dangerous,

physically demanding work on the front lines. The state has acknowledged that this system has saved over $1.2 billion in firefighting costs. But those savings come with real human risk. Many of these incarcerated firefighters, including women, face increasingly dangerous conditions as fires grow larger and more volatile. And behind these systems are stories that don't often get told. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hello everyone and welcome back to National Park After Dark. My name is Danielle. And I'm Cassie. And surprise, surprise. Here we are with another fire episode told by you. I know. I think I've told every fire episode on this podcast. You have. I just like these stories. I'm glad you do. I'm here for them. I just, I know it's your thing. So I just sit back and enjoy them instead of researching them.

It's like my realm. Yeah. Yeah. I think that I think I have kind of a theme. where when fire season is starting to either pick up or we're right about to jump into it, I like to cover it because I think they're at the forefront of people's minds. And of course, in California, we've seen over the past couple of years and especially last year that the fires are getting a lot worse and that they are invading a lot of places where people live and people are being evacuated. They're losing their homes. And I think as we are heading into the 2020s fire season, especially with the record low snow that happened this past winter, a lot of people are kind of holding their breath and waiting to see what's going to unfold.

And I think, unfortunately, unless something significantly changes with rain, that this is going to be a tough fire season. Yeah. Like you said, I feel like everyone's kind of just bracing themselves for what's to come right around the corner. which is super scary. But the topic you're covering today I have not heard of before. So I'm really excited because I've heard bits and pieces about it as you've been researching. Yes. Yes, this has been one that I've been a little excited about.

And just because this is a topic that I personally am super interested in. But today I'm going to be talking about the incarcerated women firefighters in California. And specifically, I'm going to be talking about the tributtal. tragic death of Shauna Jones and her crew members who were part of the 13-3 Malibu crew. Okay. All right. So let's get into it. The day that 22-year-old Shauna Jones died was the first day that she ever faced real flames.

Shauna Jones was just 22 years old when she joined California's inmate firefighting program assigned to an all-woman's crew based out of the Malibu Conservation Camp, known as the Malibu 1335. fire crew. She was incarcerated through the Los Angeles County Jail System, serving a three-year sentence for violating probation tied to a prior drug offense and had only been in the program for a few months after joining in August of 2015. On the fire line, she was trained to cut fire breaks and work in steep, dangerous terrain alongside her crew, doing the same grueling labor as any other firefighter. The program she was part of has deep roots. Originally established in 1915 as road camps, It expanded during World War II when California faced a shortage of able-body firefighters. In response, incarcerated people were placed in temporary camps to support the state's fire response,

laying the foundation for what would become today's network of fire conservation camps. Today, the program is jointly operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the state agency responsible for overseeing prisons and incarcerated individuals, along with Cal Fire and local agencies, like the state agency responsible, the state agency responsible for overseeing prisons and incarcerated individuals, like the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Together, they run these minimum security camps where incarcerated crews take on critical roles in wildfire suppression across the state. And I think, and I was looking into this program, and I was thinking, if I was incarcerated, this would be such a great way to get out of prison, essentially. You're serving these prison sentences, but you get to be in these beautiful locations and not to take away from the fact that you are signing up for groups.

ruling labor, but you're not in prison walls. You're outside. It's an opportunity, right? Yeah. It's an opportunity to get out and do something that breaks up the mundaneness of being incarcerated. And also, I mean, I don't know, though, because what if you're afraid? You're not forced, are you? No, you're not forced. So this is fully volunteer. I think that's a great question. This is fully volunteer and they actually have a big vetting process that goes into this because they're not going to let just anybody do it. They have to be people who are not a big risk of running away because of course they have inmates who are just outside with really no one guarding them. They could take off at any point. Yeah, if they're a flight risk. Flight risk, no go. Also,

depending on the type of crimes that they've committed, they can't, they couldn't have committed violent crimes against anyone because that's a whole other level. So a lot of these people who are on the fire lines and these women who are incarcerated are facing things like they're in jail for robbery, theft, drugs, things like that. Yeah. Despite the in-depth physical training for fighting fires, Shauna's training never had her on a real fire. So when her partner, Carla poked her and told her to be in the buggy and two minutes on the morning of February 25, 2016, Shawna couldn't shake herself awake, nor did she believe it was a real fire.

She questioned Carla whether or not the sirens were real, and when Carla reiterated that they were, and to get up, Shauna finally pushed herself out of bed. Carla was the Sawyer on the Malibu 13-3 fire crew. She was the one carrying the chainsaw and cutting the fire line, while Shauna followed behind her as a bucker, clearing heavy logs and brush to create a gap the fire couldn't cross. It was grueling work, lifting and tossing timber for hours on end, but Shauna loved it and hoped to one day take Carlos place on the saw. Behind them, the rest of the crew worked the line with tools,

and at the very back, the drag spoon checked their work, making sure the line was clean and deep enough to hold. So the drag spoon is basically the person who makes sure that all the work that they did is going to create a good fire line so the fire can't jump this line and make sure they clean up any extra debris. and they're kind of like the final person who gives them the okay you did it, we can keep going kind of thing. Okay. Carla carried herself with a kind of confidence that made her seem untouchable, but she hadn't always been that way.

Known as baby Carla when she first entered prison at 19 because of her small size, she grew up fighting to survive. Both in school and later inside Chow Chila, a violent prison where guards abused their power and safety was never guaranteed. That environment hardened her quickly and on the fire line it showed. By the time Shauna dragged herself off the cot and climbed into the fire truck with the rest of the crew, Carla spotted something off. Shana had climbed into the buggy barefoot, her boots still in her hands. Carla called her out and the moment quickly turned into laughter as Shana held them up. She had a way of doing that, cutting through the tension and making people laugh. Shauna was the person who held this group together.

She was a steady presence that helped bridge the gaps between them. And this hadn't come easy. many of them carry difficult, sometimes violent pass that made it hard to trust each other. But after weeks of training and living side by side, crew 13-3 had finally started to gel, and Shauna had played a major role in that. Every day for weeks, they'd been getting up at the crack of dawn to do 200 push-ups and lunges and box jumps and burpees and crunches and planks. Okay.

Okay, girls. Get it, girls. Let's go, girls. I know. I'm like, damn, do I need to go to prison for a little bit just to... Just so I can focus on myself, really. Yeah. Just some self-care. No one's pushing me to do that, you know? 200 burpees, 200 crunches, what else? Pull-ups? Box jumps and planks. Box? 200 planks. It's like, what's the duration? I think this was 200 total, maybe. I mean, it's a lot all around. Still, it's a lot. I feel happy after a 45-minute workout.

And I'm sure as hell not doing all that. But they're training. I mean, they're training for some pretty severe stuff. Yeah. Damn. So I made to prison for like a month before summer, you know? Yeah. Like you trying to get your beach bod, just go to prison for month.

God, beach body. Do you remember that program, beach body? Yes, they do. I remember the advertisements for that. P90X time. Oh, my God, P90X. Yeah. All of that.

There's so many fads for working out. It's crazy. I never was a beach bod girl, but P90X got me for a little bit because it just seemed like really extreme. I never did P90X. I do remember as a kid though. Do you remember? And this came up because I was watching a love story, the JFK Carolyn Bassette. And she was working out to one of those videos, like the 90s like step aerobics videos.

And I remember doing those when I was like 12 years old in my room with a VHS. Oh, I don't. I was not in that world. Like the Jane Fonda old. Yeah. X type thing. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, they're getting in these huge workouts. And I'm just kidding about going to prison. If anyone's upset that I said that. I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. I'm just, it's okay to joke every once in a while. We, I understand you're. I'm scared. I know. I know. The backlash can be right now. But yeah, just for clarification in case it wasn't super abundantly clear. Cassie does not want to go to jail. She would never do well. She couldn't. No. Oh my God.

You would wither away there. Oh, my God. I've turned into such a baby as I've gotten older. I would never. No. I couldn't. I couldn't tough it. So you better stay on this straight and narrow is all you better do.

I will. But these women are. badass and we'll get into that with their workouts that they're doing. But also, before they arrived to work on these crews, they had to pass psychological evaluations so they could make sure that the women had the right temperament for the job. So all of them had been talked to extensively to make sure that they could be a good member of these crews. And also, before they could get this job, they had a series of physical endurance tests that they had to do as well. For example, they had to run a mile and a half with a 30 pound pack on and they had to do it in a certain amount of time.

But there was one major difference between their training and other firefighters out in the field for Wildland. They did almost everything the same way that Wildland firefighters actually do it. But the one difference here is that they never actually had them on a real fire. Okay. So during their training. So the first time they ever see fire is once they're actually out on crews. I feel like that doesn't make sense.

How are you supposed to practice fighting fire without facing any sort of fire? Yeah. Yeah. And it's definitely a concern in this story as well. But it's kind of, I don't know if it's logistically they can't figure it out because they can do all the physical stuff more easily. I don't know. Like you can do all these physical tests while you're at the prison and stuff. You know, it's harder to, I don't know, I don't really know why they don't put them on real fires in their trainings, but they don't.

Which obviously makes things difficult once you get out there and it's your first time to see fire and to talk about fire are two totally separate things. But still, with all of that, Shauna felt lucky to get into the Malibu camp. When she first arrived, she had to wear a maroon uniform that marked her as a newcomer. but also when she arrived, she was relieved that she recognized someone that she knew. She recognized Lori, who was a friend from her partying days at the karaoke bar where she once worked. Lori's story wasn't simple either. When she was in junior high, a rumor spread online accusing her of being a lesbian, and her father drove her to confront the girl responsible telling her to fight her.

And because her father told her to, Lori did. By 21, she had been arrested for shoplifting, and like so many other, in California, her record began stacking up under the state's three strikes law. A sentencing rule passed in 1994 that imposed increasingly severe penalties for repeat offenses, sometimes even life sentences after a third conviction, regardless of how minor the final crime might be. So you could be sentenced to life for shoplifting because you have a felony prior to that. Or something smaller. basically California created this rule and it has since been changed and it does not work like this anymore, but they had a three strike rule that if you are arrested and charged and convicted of something three times, you're put away for life. And that is obviously, I think the bare bones of that was to get people to not be committing crimes. But the hard part about that is if you get caught shoplifting at Walmart three times,

You shouldn't go to prison for the rest of your life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously there were some big flaws with that and that eventually changed. And they don't do that anymore. But they did do that during a lot of the time of the people who are in the story. The law was originally intended to keep violent offenders behind bars, but in practice,

it swept up many people for nonviolent crimes, disproportionately impacting minority communities and adding billions to the state's prison. system. Reform didn't come until 2012 when Proposition 36 scaled back some of its harshest consequences. But by then, many people, like Lori, had already been caught in its wake. And now she was serving five and a half years for armed robbery and fraud. At Malibu, Lori took Shauna under her wing, becoming her training partner and helping her build the strength she needed for the fireline. They worked hard, pushing through the physical demands of the program, and after three weeks, Shauna finally graduated into her orange fire crew jump suit. It was a moment of pride for her because wearing the orange instead of the maroon meant that she was finally part of the crew 13-3. And more than that,

it offered a temporary escape from the realities of incarceration, which were incredibly harsh. For many of them, facing a wildfire felt preferable to staying behind those walls. Before Malibu, Shauna had been incarcerated in the Los Angeles County Jail System held at the women's facility in Linwood. While some people may remember that facility from short high profile celebrity stays, and I say that because this, you might remember this story from, it was in the 2000s, but Paris Hilton got arrested for a DUI. Do you remember this and she, they sentenced her to prison time? No, I don't remember that. Okay, so this was in, I don't, I didn't write down the year, but it was in the early 2000s. I think it was kind of around.

the time of when she was doing the show with uh nico ritchie yeah Nicole richie it was around this time she got caught doing it with a DUI she got sentenced to prison at the same facility in Linwood but her her experience was a lot different than what Shauna experienced because paris hilton basically got there realized how horrible it was had her lawyers bring her back to court and she was immediately sent home to do the rest of of her sentence on house arrest in her, in her mansion. Multi-million dollar luxury home, yeah. Yeah, instead.

So she, she had ties and a family who could help her in that way, where Shauna did not have that. And she was serving a three-year sentence. And she had to be in this prison. And it was pretty rough there. She was housed in a cramped cell with four bunks, had a narrow slit of a window, and only about 30 minutes of time outside per day. The food, she told her mother, Diana, was barely recognizable in something as she described as

goopy soup that reminded her of pet food. Oh, God. Wet pet food is so disgusting. Yeah, it's so gross. And it's a big hang up for me for wanting to get a cat. Because other than Chaska hating them, it's something about the smell and consistency. and I used to remember when we used to have to force feed syringe feed pets for different tests at the hospital. And we would have to mix the wet food with water and shove it into a syringe and force feed these animals if they didn't want to eat.

Yeah, well imagine that's you eating that. I know. And the smell and the consistency of it is so disgusting. I can handle a lot. I can handle a lot. but that is one of the thing and I don't really know why because it's not really that bad like it's food yeah do you have sensitivities to like are you a texture person will you not eat something because of a texture no interesting yeah I don't know what I don't know what it's watching someone else eat

a bad texture that does it I don't know we don't have to linger on this anymore but yeah yeah um so basically Basically, the food's horrible and she was telling her mom about this. And when her mom was finally able to get through security for short visits, Shauna shared what life was actually like inside the prison. And one story really stuck out in her mom's mind. She had told her mother about another incarcerated woman whose name was Unique Moore. And she had asthma and her asthma and hailer had been taken away from her.

When Unique started struggling, saying her chest hurt and she was running a fever, she asked for help, but no one responded. Her breathing grew worse, she weased, coughed, and eventually collapsed after screaming for the guards to come help her. Her cellmates were also screaming for help, desperate for someone to come by, but no one did and they ignore them for hours. By the time a deputy finally arrived with an inhaler, Unique was already unresponsive. She was intubated, but she didn't end up surviving. On top of that horrific story, Shauna heard of the Linwood deputies that had been arrested for raping inmates and heard news that the prison doctors had been sterilizing women inmates against their will. Oh, my God. When, what year was this?

This is 2016. Oh, my God. Yeah, so there's some really horrific stuff going on in this prison. And Shauna was confiding in her mom being like, I, this, I. this I saw this happen. I hear that this stuff's going on. I need to figure out a way to not be in this prison for these three years. I need to find something to do while I'm here. And her mom, Diana, couldn't believe what she was enduring there, especially because she was there on drug-related charges. It wasn't she's not this violent criminal. And originally when her daughter had been sentenced to prison,

she hoped that it would be this time to get her away from drugs. But Shauna actually told her mother that there were just as many drugs inside the prison as there were outside. It was actually almost easier to get drugs when she was in prison. So she told her mom that she wanted to sign up to do the forestry crew, even if it meant risking her life fighting fires to put herself on a better path and get her away from drugs. So Shauna at this point was just like, I'm just trying to do my time and get out and move on with my life and live a better life. life. So her mom encouraged her to do it and said, you know, I think that that sounds like a really

good idea. You should, you're not going to be in the prison walls. You won't be around this. That sounds much better for your future. With all that in mind, the fire camp accommodations were a much better option. At Malibu camp, Shawna wasn't living in a traditional jail cell anymore. She was housed in a dorm style barrack with bunk beds, shared spaces, and far more time outdoors, trading concrete walls for something that felt closer to the outside world, even if she was still very much incarcerated. Daily life revolved around training, chores, and fire assignments, and when crews were deployed, that structure could shift quickly, sometimes sleeping in temporary fire camps or makeshift setups on the line. It wasn't freedom, but compared to Linwood, it was a completely different way

of living. Even still, it's a little easy to connect the dots between incarcerated people fighting fires to California's long history of forced labor and slavery. Back in the mid-1800s, the state was split north and south, just like the east coast was. Up north, people were mostly anti-slavery, but down south, not so much. The biggest difference in California was that the people they wanted to get free labor from were indigenous people. In 1850, the state, the state, passed a law that allowed white settlers to accuse indigenous people of vagrancy, which was a vague charge often applied simply for not working for a white employer or for living on their own land, and upon arrest, they would force them into up to four months of unpaid labor. They even sold

indigenous people at public auctions. Eventually, in 1865, California abolished slavery except for imprisoned people. Inmates went on to build much of the state's infrastructure, its highways, It stams, even their own prison, the infamous San Quentin, was built by prisoners. The incarcerated had been working for free for California for a long time. And then when you link all that together and then realize that Shauna and Lori and Carla and all these women on this crew are getting paid $1 a day, $2 a day when they're on a fire, is, I mean, it's literal pennies that you're paying these women to risk their lives. so it's free labor almost. Yeah, definitely. But at least working on the fire crews, while incarcerated,

offered some form of dignity for the women and their families. On the phone, Shauna told her mom, you can come stay at the Malibu camp in a cabin and we can see each other. You can bring hot dogs and marshmallows. They've got barbecue grills and everything. And this was one of the main reasons that people wanted to sign up for firefighting because their families could come visit them, especially the women who had children, instead of their children coming into having to go through security and sit in a cold room

and see them in orange suits and behind bars and stuff. Their children could come to a place where they were working. They could make it more of a barbecue, like a camp setup, and their children could see them doing something more productive. And so that was a really big incentive for women to sign up. was to not traumatize their children as much when they came to visit. Yeah, it's an added benefit along with just how it's going to change their day-to-day life. There's other benefits involved to doing that program.

And I can definitely see the incentives are, I'm surprised not more people were like clamoring to do it. Was it highly, you said it was highly selective though, right, based on different factors. So maybe it is something that is like or was really sought after. Yeah, it's really dependent on what you're in there for, how long you're in there for. Yeah. Things like that. And I think some people probably truly don't want to do it too because it is so physically demanding. I think a lot of people maybe aren't capable of it because it's so physically demanding.

So there's a lot of factors here because, I mean, the payoffs here are great. You're getting another thing I haven't mentioned yet for this is. that the food is way better. And that is something that they do feed you well when you're on fire crews because you're burning so much calories through the day that they set you up with big meals to make sure that everyone's sustained and doing well. So they have better foods. They have better accommodation, all of that.

But you're trading it for extreme manual labor, which not everyone's into. And risk to your life. Yeah. Yeah. And the risk of your life. Well, for Shawna, this was a really exciting thing for her. because she had always wanted to be a canine police officer. In her photo albums, her mother had a picture of her dressed up as a cop for Halloween,

and now she was kind of getting the second best of that as she was getting to actually be a firefighter. And Diana was happy to see her daughter's life taking a positive turn, especially after years of hard times. Shauna's dad, Roger, had physically abused her mom, Diana, and went to jail for drugs himself. When she was growing up, Diana helped Sean. get a job working at a pool hall and karaoke bar called the trap where she worked, but Shauna started partying too much. And then she had a boyfriend who got caught with a large amount of meth and weed in their car. The boyfriend already had gotten into trouble twice.

And because of California, three strikes in your outlaw, he actually asked Shauna to take the heat for him. Because he knew that if he was on his third strike, that he was going to go to prison for a long time. So he said to Shana, you know, just take say this is yours. Take the blame for it. It's your first strike. You've never been in trouble before. They'll let you off easy. I'll pay your bail.

It'll be no big deal. And she agreed. So he talked her into taking the heat for it. He did follow up on his word. He did pay her bail. He did get her out. But that did put a strike on a record. And eventually she ended up at Linwood after violating her parole multiple.

times and part of that parole is she couldn't get in trouble and she got caught stealing from Walmart so that's how she ended up in prison was for a drug charge that was not hers was not hers and then she got caught shoplifting and ended up in three years in prison so finally Shauna just wanted to have a clean slate and she ended up actually the reason why she ended up even in trouble is that she actually turned herself into her parole officer after getting caught and was like, hey, like this happened. And she was just like, I got to start fresh. And she's serving the sentence and now she's here. So now in February of 2016, she had almost done all of her time. She was actually only 45 days away from the end of her sentence. Once she got out,

Shauna's plan was to go into forestry professionally so she could keep fighting fire. On the ride to the fire that day, their captain told them that this fire, the Mahalan fire, shouldn't be that big. About 10 to 20 acres is what they were told. But the terrain was going to be really steep and hard to deal with. The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area isn't far away from where this fire was burning. It's one of the largest protected Mediterranean-style ecosystems in the world, which means the climate is supposed to be wet in the winter and warm and dry in the summer. You can be walking on the beach in the morning and then climb a 3,000 foot mountain in the afternoon.

And that recipe has attracted a huge diversity of plants and animals, bobcats and coyotes, and 400 species of birds called these ravines home. The famous mountain lion, named P-22, RIP, once roamed these hills. And this park protects over 50 endangered and threatened species among the highest concentration in the United States. I'm smirking at the P-22 reference because, as you know. I put that in there for you. I've been.

I don't know why it's so funny. But Cassie and I have this organizational board where we can see each other's, at least, our topics. So we know not to do like multiple murder or true crime or, I don't know, survival stories. Or that we're not doing the same. story. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So it's usually just a picture. It's just a picture and like the subject. And that's all we kind of get. And we just have this running joke because I have had P22 on my schedule for legitimately over a year. And I just keep sliding it over. It's always at the end of the line that you can see on the calendar. It's always a picture of P22. And every time we get closer P22 moves. Farther and farther. Not intentionally.

I will cover that story. I mean, you have to. It's just so funny because it's, I won't get rid of it. It's always there. Always watching. It's always there. Always on your mind. Yeah, but anyway.

So yeah, I'm very familiar with this area of the world because it's just always on the Backburner. It's seriously for years. it'll happen well the Santa Monica National Recreation Area and around this was the area that the Malibu

133 would go to protect the wilderness there and actually fun fact about these crews too and I think is important to mention is this is where this story is taking place but these incarcerated women fire crews are dispatched around the state of California

but a big area that they are in a lot is like Hidden Hills and in all of the areas where all of the really prominent celebrities live that have millions. I mean, these people's houses are worth millions of dollars. The people themselves have billions of dollars. And these women are getting paid a dollar a day to protect their property. The bougiest properties around.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're talking about the wealthiest celebrities and people in the United States live in these areas. and the people protecting their homes are getting paid a dollar today. And I know that they're incarcerated. And I know that the whole point of being in prison is you're serving time for crimes that you've committed. However, I don't think that going to prison is also volunteering to risk your life for free.

So I think that there has to. And I think that part of the prison system is what it's supposed to do is you serve the, you do the crime. serve the time, whatever. But I think it's also supposed to be preparing you to come out as a better citizen and to contribute to society. And I think that paying these people a dollar a day to risk their lives is not really helping them build a life when they get out. So I just wanted to mention that they are protecting the richest people in the world's

homes for a dollar day. Well, the juxtaposition of those two things is glaring, you know. Yeah. Which is a common theme in California. I think anyway, especially when you're in the L.A. area, the homelessness versus how rich people are is just the contrast is insane. Yeah. Well, going back into that day of the fire, as the buggy drove into the Santa Monica Mountains in the wee hours the morning, they could see the panicked faces in the cars driving away from the fire with all the local residents getting evacuated. But the buggy with crew 133 had their music crank loud and drove straight at the fire. instead of away from it and they felt exhilarated.

Immate crews are usually the first on the scene. That way, they can start clearing a fire break. The Malibu 133 crew hit the ground and started hiking. They carved a line up and down steep ravines. Besides Carla, the crew also had another woman on a chainsaw. Her name was Selena. She had been on more fires than she could count, and firefighting just came easy to her because she'd always been athletic.

Selena ran her first marathon at the age of 11, but she got mixed up with a gang, known as the Crazy Riders, when she was only 14. Her nickname was Leninia because she was so young to join a gang. She ended up in prison when she robbed a guy of his $950 bike. She knew that she could have outrun those cops because she was very fast. But when they caught her beloved Chihuahua Poppy, she turned back and was arrested. Yeah. Protecting the dog. I understand it

I do not turn back for a chihuahua Selena says Looking back There was something weird About the Mahalan fire The flames licked up taller Than the trucks or the trees And the roaring of it was deafening

Helicopter swooped over Dropping red retardant But the sound that haunted Selena The most was the sound of animals That she could hear crying From inside the fire Okay I'm sorry

To hide It just dropped that in there. That is haunting. Now it's going to haunt me. Yeah. That's one of the things I think I don't think about about fire sometimes is in my perfect brain, I think that animals know how to escape fire. And I think a lot of times they do. But that is certainly not always the case.

And Alice told me stories of that same thing that he's heard when he's been on fires. Oh, that kind of reminds me. The only fire story I think I've done is the bonus story I did about the former park ranger that dedicated his life to rescuing cats after the fire. Oh, yeah, the fire cats. Yeah. Okay, so you have a fire story under your belt. There it is. I feel better about that.

Well, after a while of digging a fire line, Shauna asked Carla if she could take a turn using the chain. saw. Carla didn't want to let her because this was her second season of fighting fires and she loved being on the saw, but the captain made her pass over the 20 pound machine to Shauna so she could use it. Shana was chainsaw certified, but she'd never run one on an actual fire because remember, this is her first fire that she's ever been on and this was her chance to have real world experience. So she's like, Carla, hand over the saw to her. Like she needs she needs to, you know, she needs to, you. use it as well. The fire roared and Shauna carted the chainsaw as far as she could, but she'd already worn herself out throwing logs and laying miles of hose that entire morning. But Carla was

used to that weight. So pretty soon, Shauna passed the saw back to her, with now Carla carrying both an axe and the saw. So Carla's just a beast. She's like, I've done this. This is my second season. I know. And Shauna's a little green. She's new she's been exercising. a lot in practicing, but as I mentioned, none of her training took place on a real fire. So this is her first time, like, really out on the front lines. The crew climbed up to a spot where the ladies carrying the tools needed to dig a trench. While they waited, Selena and Carla goofed off, throwing pebbles and sticks off the sheer cliff from where they stood under an overhang.

Carla noticed the soil underfoot felt loose and sandy, but then something else quickly drew her attention because they heard something from above. and they were cat calls. Another inmate crew of men were working above them. Male and female inmate crews weren't allowed to interact, even though they had to work together to try and stop a fire. So they would be in the same vicinity, but they weren't allowed to speak to each other, talk to each other.

But the men saw them and started calling down to them and were like, hey, baby, what's your name? How you doing today? Oh, you look beautiful. Just like really catcalling them, probably the first women. had seen in quite a while. But Carla and Shauna ignored them, rolled their eyes. They're like, get out of here. Like, we're not interested. But the interference resulted in their captain making the crew hang back to let the men finish above. So basically they were like, you guys pause here.

The men are going to keep going forward. We're going to create some distance between you guys because we can't have this interaction happening. But while they waited, Carla started to feel rocks sum the size of a silver dollar hitting her from above, ricocheting off her wrist, stinging through her safety gear. She tried to get out of the way, but there was no room on the cliffside that they were on. The rocks began raining down even more, and Carla yelled up at the mail crew above them to stop throwing fucking rocks. Then, suddenly, she heard a loud bang echo off the hillside. It was so loud, it sounded like a gunshot had gone off, but when she turned to see what had caused it, she saw Shauna collapsed and sprawled in a trench on her back.

For a split second, it didn't register. Shawna was known for joking around, and Carla's first instinct was that this had to be some kind of prank. But as she rushed towards her, that thought disappeared just as quickly. Shauna's helmet had been knocked sideways off her head, and beside her was a boulder the size of a basketball. Carla's eyes dropped to the ground, and that's when she saw her. saw the blood and the dirt. Everything around her seemed to break at once. People were screaming, people were crying, and Carla realized that she was one of them, her voice coming out before she could even process what was happening. Someone dropped down and started CPR, hands moving

quickly, urgently, while the rest of the crew stood frozen or sobbing around them. It all felt chaotic and unreal, like it couldn't possibly be happening to them or to Shana. Before Carla, could even fully understand what she was seeing, a helicopter arrived and Shauna was lifted out, rising up above them as the blades cut through the air. The crew of Malibu 13-3 stood there watching helpless as their teammate disappeared into the sky and it felt like something essential was being pulled away from them. Carla could only think, not Shauna, please anyone but Shauna. Shauna's mom, Diana, was told her daughter had been seriously injured and to meet her at the hospital.

But when she arrived, she found Shauna handcuffed to the gurney. And seeing that stopped her cold. Her daughter had been hurt while risking her life fighting the state's fires, and still they didn't trust her enough to receive care without restraints. Diana had heard stories before that women were even shackled during childbirth, but seeing it in front of her made it feel even more wrong. as civil rights attorney David Fathi, who had spent years advocating for the rights of incarcerated people, later said about programs like this, if these people are safe enough to be out and about with axes and chainsaws, maybe they shouldn't be in prison in the first place.

For a short time, there was hope. Shauna's pulse seemed to stabilize and word spread through the crew that she was doing a little better, but still she wasn't conscious. They held on to that, believing she might pull through. Lori, her close friend and training partner, struggled to make sense of it all. They were trained to prevent accidents like this, to watch for falling debris, to protect each other, and something like this was never supposed to happen. Then the news came down. Shawna had died from her injuries when the large boulder had fallen nearly 100 feet and hit her directly in the head.

She was only the third conservation camp inmate to die since the program began in 1943, but she was the first woman inmate to lose her life on the fire lines. Hold on a minute. For clarity, was this an accident or were the men above intentionally throwing rocks down at them? They am going to get into that a little bit more. Okay. Because just I think it was a comment by one of them earlier. You said that she called up and said, hey, stop throwing rocks.

Yeah. Yeah, Carla had been like, hey, stop because they were, they were throwing rocks at them or she thought they were throwing rocks. Right. But it could have been the loose rocks that were coming down. But afterwards, actually, the investigators came to the camp to ask questions about what had happened. But Selena, who is a former gang member, really didn't like the way that these questions felt. The tone wasn't supportive or even neutral. It felt accusatory like they were looking for someone on 13.

three to blame. So these investigators came in actually and were like, well, was Shana wearing a helmet? Which she was always known. She was actually one of the few on the crew that refused to not wear a helmet. So she always wore one. And also they asked if she had any enemies or if there were any fighting or things happening at the time of this happening. Like someone had intentionally struck her with Iraq is what investigators were leading to. And The crew felt pretty uncomfortable with that. Like this was a freak accident as far as they could tell. It wasn't intentional or anything.

It was just the terrain and the atmosphere that they were in. But these investigators were like, well, did she have enemies? Was she wearing a helmet? Did she not follow the protocol, the safety protocols that are in place that we trained you guys to do? And we're really trying to pass the blame onto them instead of offering, you know, like condolences for your. your friend and your team member that you just watched die in front of you. Yeah, lose their life. Yeah. Just two days after Shauna's death, the team was expected to return to the fire line.

And of course, none of them felt ready. The grief was still raw and sitting heavy in their chest. But when they were asked to go to a fire, they climbed into the buggy anyway. But instead of heading back to a fire, their captain instead drove them to a beach and gave them space to breathe, to sit with their feet in the water and let the cool ocean air cut through the shock of it all and said, we're not going to a fire. You guys are not ready for this. Just breathe and relax. Even with that moment, the lost in ease. Shauna's death fractured the crew. Some members began getting into fights and were eventually transferred,

while others couldn't bring themselves to go back on the fireline at all and walked away from firefighting entirely. the reality of what had happened had settled in that this wasn't just time to be served and to get through, that they were actually risking their lives while they were out here and that it might not be worth it. Because, of course, in Shauna's case, she would have been free in just 45 more days. Yeah, so close. At Shawna's funeral, fire crews stood in full uniform and saluted her mother as two fire trucks raised their ladders overhead, crossing them in tribute. Diana returned home carrying the folded flag from her daughter's casket. Shawna was honored in death, recognized for the life she gave on the fireline,

while the women of Malibu 133 were left to carry on. After her release, Lori, Shauna's friend from the karaoke bar, entered an in-house rehab program and found religion. She got sober, met a partner, and began building a stable life, pursuing a degree in art, and eventually buying a home. But even as things began to come together, the same questions on job applications about her criminal history kept closing doors before they could open, making it nearly impossible to find steady work with benefits. Working in Wildland Fire after being released from prison was difficult.

While being a convicted felon doesn't bar you from being hired, it does make things much more difficult. First, a background check is always required when you are applying for these jobs, but more so what makes getting these jobs difficult is that a lot of them require you to be an EMT and you can't get that certification as a felon very easily. There's a lot of hoops that you have to go through. So even though technically their criminal background didn't bar them from working in fire, they couldn't get the certifications that they needed to be hired on the cruise. I see. Selina faced a similar reality of finding a career out of prison. Once out, she worked at a warehouse job for minimum wage, but that didn't last. And after losing it, she took an opportunity from her landlord to manage her

apartment building, hiding her felony to get the position. It gave her some stability, but she needed to pick up extra hours working as a cashier at a 7-Eleven down the street from where she worked because she was supporting two toddlers by that point. So she was also not able to get a job in fire even after working in it for a couple seasons. For Shawna's mom, Diana, life got much worse after her daughter's death. She got a large tattoo of Shauna in which her daughter's face is rendered in half flesh, half skull, and that's what her own life felt like, half in and half out of death. Diana became suicidal and tried to cut her arms. Her new boyfriend gave her a black eye and she had to file a restraining order against him. She ended up moving back in with her ex-husband, Bobby,

who was a person who had abused Shauna growing up. But then Bobby attacked Diana too, choking her until she couldn't breathe. It took years to figure out what she was living for, but eventually she recognized that her younger daughter Ashley still needed her. Ashley graduated from high school with a plan to go to college to become a mechanical engineer, and Diana found a full-time job working for a company, caring for guarding plants, and steered clear of romantic relationships. On September 11, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law that offered a pathway to important. for incarcerated firefighters.

California's long history of turning a blind eye to slavery and forced labor might have started to feel wrong after these megafires when hundreds of inmates stepped up to help. Newsom said, they are a literal army fighting to save the state from a climate catastrophe. But the new law doesn't attempt to address the problem that inmates are making only two to five dollars a day plus a dollar an hour. But it's one step forward and two steps back. Just last year, California voters rejected Proposition 6 that would have ended forced labor in jails and prisons. The measure would have amended the state's constitution to repeal language that allows involuntary servitude as a form of criminal punishment, making work assignments voluntary, and allowing incarcerated people to prioritize their rehabilitation.

The state of California realized that there was too much money to be lost to give up. what they had, so they voted against it. It all goes back to money. Yep. On the same day of the campfire in 2018, one of the most destructive fires in California's history, the Woolsley fire ignited as well. It killed three people and 295,000 people had to evacuate.

It burned nearly 100,000 acres, and it was the Woolsey fire that burned 88% of Santa Monica National Recreation Area. All those endangered species all that wildlife, all those ecosystems to ashes. So much loss and heartbreak that it's hard to notice the littler things the fire took. The Woolsey burned right over Camp Malibu. The buildings where the crews trained and the families visited, luckily were saved. But a black oak tree that Malibu 133 crew planted in honor of Shauna never got to grow to maturity.

That little tree went up in smoke. And that is the end of my story of Shauna Jones and the fire crews and the incarcerated women that are on the front lines in California. I never seriously had no idea any of that existed, really. So that was all new to me pretty much. And why would you? You know, you kind of think of fire cruise and you just see that. I mean, if you've been out west and you have seen fire crews, some of them could be. incarcerated and you've had no idea.

They look just like everyone else who are on the front lines. Wow. Yeah. That three strikes rule is also crazy. It's not only because of what it is, but also just like you said, it went up to very recently. Yeah. 2012 was when they changed it. Yeah.

It's just crazy. And these women, it's not giving these women a chance, too, and a lot of these women. So the book I read for this is called Breathing Fire, Female Inmate Firefighters on the Frontlines of California's Wildfires by Jamie Lowe. And she goes really in depth to a lot of these women's stories. And one of the common denominator themes of these women is that they really weren't set up from the beginning. They had really hard lives going up to the point of their incarceration. And a lot of them were really, I mean, we talked a little bit. bit about it. I mean, stealing from Walmart, some drug charges, some theft that was going on,

you know, and ending up in prison and just not being set up well for a life after, too. And that I think is something that hopefully changes when you look at all of the work and training that they've done and they work on fire crews forever to get out and then not have really an opportunity or much of a chance to work and fire, which can provide a real living and a real income and get them out of these bad situations that they were in before they entered prison is really unfortunate because the whole point they say

about going to prison is that you are preparing people, unless you're in there for life, you're preparing people to come back into society as better people. And this seems like a really good way to do it if you're doing it correctly and not money gouging and setting people up for jobs and... Right.

Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing it. I totally learned something new today and I appreciate it. And it was, I mean, of course, it's sad and tragic accident. So it is ruled officially as an accident. I think it feels aligned with that. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, even if they were, I don't know. I don't foresee some of it. taking a boulder-sized rock. No. Sorry, not a boulder-sized rock. That is stupid. A basketball-sized boulder. I knew what she meant.

Okay. Just for clarification. I don't foresee that happening, especially from other fire crews that know the dangers of doing that. No, I think it was definitely an accident. And the terrain was just a lot of loose rock. And there were a lot of people above them, which probably happened. I mean, not the same.

safest, but part of their training, too, is to be looking out for rocks and stuff. And this, it was just the terrain and the environment and, and where they were. And she was new, too, you know, this was her first fire and maybe wasn't paying as much of attention as she should have in that moment. But again, that's not her fault. It's just, seems like just a freak. It's just a freak thing that happened. And unfortunately, she lost her life. And, And I hope that telling stories like this brings more of an appreciation for the women who are out on the fire lines and brings attention to them because I think a lot, wildland firefighting is a male dominated field for sure. And there are a lot of women in there, but overwhelmingly it's men. But to hear of these all women crews, I had never like you, before I read this book, I never knew that this was happening and that these women were on the front lines in California.

and fighting these massive fires. I mean, all the fires that you see in California, these big fires that you're seeing, these women are on and these women are fighting them. So it's good to know the people behind that. Yeah, absolutely. And one other thing, just a side note, but when you were describing the whole rock situation,

and for a second, I was thinking, oh, was that done intentionally? my mind immediately went to last year there was someone in the area I used to live in in Colorado who was taking bold huge rocks off of overpasses and throwing them into cars and he killed some people Oh my God. Yeah. That's awful. Yeah, he would just go up onto an overpass or throw them from moving vehicles at other vehicles intentionally

and it would break through their windshield and either cause death from blunt force trauma or cause a crash that ultimately ended people, drivers' lives. That's horrible. And they caught him? Yeah, he was caught. But it just like immediately I thought of that. People are so scary. I know. Yeah.

But then I immediately, I was like, there's no way. Especially on a fire like this. And yeah. So anyway, I just wanted to bring that up. I think it's a total fair question. and one that investigators brought up. You know, they showed up immediately and they were like, who did this on purpose? Yeah.

Well, that was a little. Yeah. Extreme. And okay, so also I meant to clarify that that questioning was that exclusive to the Malibu crew or did they also question the other crew, the male crew? It seems like they questioned everyone who was around, yeah. I think that's legit. I mean, I feel like, of course, if there was. an accusatory tone that the women sensed that was probably, you know, uncalled for.

And obviously insensitive. If you're out on these fire lines, you're there for a nonviolent crime. So to just assume that these people are suddenly murderers and none of them are there for violent crimes is a bit of a stretch. And also, I mean, let's just, it kind of goes without saying, but it really, the detail of, of her mom seeing her handcuffed to a gurney while she's legitimately fighting for her life. And unconscious. Yeah. Come on.

Yeah. And the book kind of goes into those details a bit more because they also talk a lot about women who are incarcerated, who are giving birth. And that they are handcuffed during that whole. It's barbaric. It's truly barbaric. What is a woman an active labor going to do? Was you going to get up and run away? Yeah. And you can have a guard at the door so she can't leave. You know, it's just like, it's absolutely barbaric and to have her completely unconscious.

Unresponsive. With a head injury. With a head injury. Yeah. And for nonviolent, she's again, and for nonviolent crimes, what suddenly makes her this much of a security risk over her, over treating her like a human being. Yeah. God. Yeah. Well, on that note, sorry I ended this one sad. I know. I realized at the end, I was like. It was an abrupt end that I was not, I thought there was going to be more like an upswing or some sort of. I know. When I was looking at it, I was like, God, I got to turn this around somehow, but I didn't. Didn't. Yeah. I just kind of left it. So. Well, as you've said before, some stories are just meant to be. what they are, which is sad. Yeah. I'm not mad at you. I'm just disappointed. Disappointed. Yeah.

That hurts. I wish I had a pallet cleanser. I don't. I know. We got to plan our palet cleansers. I feel like all of our episodes at the end were like pallet cleanser. Oh no, we forgot about that again. Whoops.

Oops. All right. Well, thank you, everyone. For everything, we'll see you next week. Enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye, guys. Bye.

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