According to Daily Mail, the inmate volunteer force now accounts for 14 percent of the firefighters deployed across California, and is composed of minimum-security inmates who are considered low security risks.
'The inmate fire fighters work in teams of 12 - their specific job is to cut containment lines and fire breaks to either stop a fire or change its direction, while firefighters from CalFire and other agencies directly attack the flames,' California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Bill Sessa said in a statement to DailyMail.com.
'That means our inmates are often hiking into back country with 60 pounds of gear on their backs. In fire situations like those we are now seeing in California, our firefighters - and all the others as well - are working 24 hours straight before being rotated by other crews who rested in the previous 24 hours,' Sessa said.