Firefighting inmates invaluable

Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2000 | 11:02 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

YELLOW PINE, Idaho -- In Utah, they are inmates at Bluffdale State Prison. But in the fire zone, they strut proudly in black T-shirts proclaiming themselves members of the Flame 'N' Go Hotshots -- the highest designation for firefighters.

"Being in this program makes all the difference," said Bart Clark, 33, a six-time felon who has spent 11 of the last 15 years in prison. "Now I can tell my 4-year-old son that his dad isn't in prison, he's out fighting fires."

Almost every day since mid-May, Clark -- convicted most recently of kidnapping -- and the rest of his 20-man crew have been battling blazes across the West. The crew is far from alone.

In this devastating fire season, one in six crew members fighting fires is a convict from such states as Utah, Wyoming and Nevada.

"Sometimes there are special considerations, on account of their being inmates," Mike Melton, a Forest Service official, said. "But frankly, we're glad to have any help we can get."

Other federal officials say the inmates have been invaluable, providing a much needed, well-trained and well-supervised reinforcement to resources that have worn thin.

And 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.

Nationwide, 81 large fires were still burning on 1.67 million acres Monday in 11 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. To date, 74,571 fires have burned nearly 6.6 million acres.

However, millions of acres of forests and grasslands in Montana were reopening -- with restrictions -- to the public today because cool, rainy weather and increasing numbers of firefighters have lessened the danger of wildfires.

Firefighters have been mobilized from 38 states, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and numerous military units. By official count, 25,000 firefighters are spread across the West -- more than 2,000 are inmates.

Many of the inmates described themselves as blessed, seeing fire as a vehicle that has brought not only a taste of freedom but an opportunity to redress old wrongs.

Prisoners were given a sobering reminder last week that firefighting is not without risk. Two inmated-firefighters, Michael Bishop and Roger Braithwaite, were killed last week in a lightning strike in Utah.

"I wasn't too proud of him when he first went in to prison," Dan Bishop of Riverton, Utah, said of his late son. "But I became very, very proud."