...In this devastating fire season, one in six of the crew members fighting fires by hand is a convict, drawn from state prisons in an enterprise that most everyone involved seems to see as benefiting all concerned....
At wages that average $1 an hour, the use of inmates is a bargain, one that might ease the taxpayers' burden in a year in which federal firefighting costs will exceed $1 billion....
...With wages that can reach $5.55 an hour, the Utah crew is better paid than other inmate teams, though the rate is just a fraction of civilian wages. A civilian firefighter with the same elite status would make about $15 an hour plus overtime.
But in all the heady rush, the prisoners have also been given a sobering reminder that firefighting is not without risk. Two fellow inmate-firefighters were killed last week in Utah in a lightning strike, raising questions about just how much value might be attached to an inmate's life.
The State of Utah has paid only for the inmates' funerals, and state officials say they cannot be confident that the two prisoners will become eligible for federal death benefits of nearly $150,000 that is routinely paid to firefighters slain in action.
"When we signed up, we had to sign a waiver that released the state from any liability," Michael Kinikini, 33, a member of that team and a convicted robber, said at the Utah prison this week. "But the bottom line is that we're out there protecting public land, and if we die, the compensation should be the same as for everyone else."...
...By official count, some 25,000 firefighters are now involved in battling dozens of blazes across the West.
That count includes ground crews, air squads, fire engine personnel, and an army of supervisors and support personnel, said Neil Hitchcock, a federal fire manager who coordinates the use of firefighting resources.
About 13,000 people belong to crews assigned to the fire lines, Mr. Hitchcock said. Of these, more than 2,000 are inmates, according to estimates provided by regional fire centers, with most operating in California, home to the nation's largest inmate-firefighter program....
...Among the advocates of prison-firefighting programs are those who argue that they make good economic sense.
In California, where the state prison population now stands at 162,000, it costs $21,000 a year to house a prisoner behind walls but just $13,000 a year at one of the conservation camps, said Mack Reynolds, a corrections official who supervises that state's program.
In California and some other states, the incentives offered for prisoner participation include early release, with a one-day credit in time served typically offered for every day that an inmate works on the fire line. In Utah, however, sentences are fixed, which state officials say is a reason that they provide more pay.
Some prisoner-rights advocates, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, have campaigned for broad changes in the law that would require that inmates be paid at least minimum wage and be made subject to other labor-protection laws.
In an interview, Carol Gnade, the group's executive director in Utah, said she had mixed feelings about the program.
"On the one hand, we encourage prisons to get more involved in giving opportunity to prisoners," Ms. Gnade said. "But at the same time, they should extend that to the same kinds of protections that other people receive."...