Rebecca's Thoughts

Fire Country is a TV show and it wants to be the most relevant thing on network television at the moment. The show follows Bode Donovan (later Bode Leone) as he traverses his past, his parents, and his life as a felon taking part in an inmate firefighting program. The show is a basic firefighting procedural, with a new disaster happening every week that Bode and the crew must solve.  

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CAL FIRE, is the fire department of the California Natural Resources Agency. It is tasked with responding to forest fires and attending to disasters. Historically, the incarcerated firefighter population made up around 30% of CAL FIRE’s wildfire forces.¹ Due to COVID-19 and prison reform, however, the number currently sits around 10-15%.² Like the police procedurals that have come before, Fire Country attempts to take a fictionalized look into a very real program that exists within the American Government. The show is very clearly not reinventing the wheel, but it’s an interesting addition to the network cable landscape, and the inclusion of inmate firefighters differentiates it from the million other firefighting shows currently on television.  

The show at its core is about Bode and his life traversing the criminal justice system in California, his life as an inmate firefighter, his personal life returning to his hometown of Blackwater, and his struggles confronting the people from his past. Because of this, the show goes to great lengths to discuss prison, inmates, and the struggles Bode faces both personally and within the institutions of CAL FIRE.  

In his paper Varieties of Prison Voyeurism, Jeffrey Ian Ross discusses the idea of Prison Voyeurism as  

[A]ttempts to understand and/or experience corrections without intimately engaging in the subject matter. It is also characterized by superficiality in terms of economic, physical, mental, emotional, and psychological investment in the experience. For example, after participating in a voyeuristic experience, people may believe that they are sufficiently educated on the topic and can engage in meaningful discussions about it. Voyeurism allows participants to learn about a subject, without the appropriate rigorous and potentially boring downsides. In short, it is much easier to learn in this manner, but the content is shallow and/or skewed. Prison voyeurism reflects a failure to meaningfully engage with the subject matter. In no way does this mean that outsiders simply looking into the prison are voyeurs. But, prison voyeurism is typically done through activities that are mediated, entertaining, and provide a distraction from the actual experience.³ 

Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons is a TV show that, well attempts to take a look into the world’s toughest prisons. This show is the textbook example of what prison voyeurism is as it’s an unquestioning, uncritical look into prisons from around the world. At no point in the 7-season run of the show is the idea of penal justice, incarceration, or the prison industrial complex discussed in any critical or meaningful degree. Rather what is seen is a propagandistic approach to the idea of what a prison shouldn’t look like, without providing meaningful solutions and critiques. The critiques that are provided seem shallow and don’t extend outside ideas like “the bad guy is bad,” “overcrowded prisons are bad,” or “we should feed prisoners.”  

Like, the countries that have no money or regard for their people have bad poor prison conditions, whereas the countries that have lots of money are care about their people have great conditions.  

Really groundbreaking stuff over here.  

These shallow attempts of critique do nothing when attempting to engage with the idea of incarceration as a whole. When prison conditions are bad the show attempts to humanize the inmates, and empathize with them, ultimately justifying the need for better conditions. When the prison conditions are good, the show frames these institutions as being too kind to the prisoners, and attempts to wrestle with the idea of “how much struggle should prison involve?” These episodes also seem to focus more on the guards at the prison and their concerns about the inmates. Ross establishes the idea of Prison voyeurism as a type of mediated tourism concerned with the visitation of prisons and not the criminal justice system.  

It should also be of note that during the run of the show, the mention or visitation of an American prison is never seen. For a show that attempts to look into the world’s toughest prisons, the show never visits the country with the most incarcerated individuals. I don’t think there is an ulterior message behind this, I’d imagine doing a show like this in an American prison would be a bureaucratic nightmare. I also don’t think that the show would be able to maintain its very bipartisan brand of impartiality if they were to visit an American prison. They would be forced to take a side, and that is something this show clearly has no interest in doing. However, the lack of American prisons does create a narrative and feeds into the mysticism of the American prison system. Ross discusses the idea of myths becoming indistinguishable from truth when people don’t have access to all the information. People fill in the gaps in their knowledge with rumors and stereotypes making legitimate conversations difficult.  

Myths about jails and prisons hinder the emergence of rational discussion and prevent a fair hearing by the public. The acceptance of such misconceptions also means that the same types of mistakes will continue to be made in the policy arena. By reinforcing punitive mentalities, rehabilitation and the rehabilitative ideal are, thus, frustrated.⁴  

This is obviously not a good thing but I don’t think it’s an intentional action on behalf of the show. The criminal justice system, especially prisons are often seen as mysterious intuitions. This mentality of only criminals should know what goes on in prisons, is something that is used as an excuse for poor living conditions and the mistreatment of the prison population. Because the action of committing crimes is seen within society as contrary, the people who commit crimes are labelled as “outsiders” or “bad” and their actions as “heinous.” As a way of avoiding this, “good” people do everything in their power to avoid the system and the people within it.  

“We can’t have Little Timmy hanging out, or learning more about prison because then he’ll start committing crimes and then he’ll become bad.”  

This is a gross simplification of a much larger systemic issue but it does illustrate where these gaps in knowledge can stem from and how they grow. This lack of curiosity, freely available information, and general dislike of the criminal justice system leads to the creation of myths and misinformation. This is why the depiction of prisons and inmates in media is important as it’s often the only look into criminal justice systems that people see regularly. Milena Milićević and Nikola Drndarević discuss in their paper Media Portrayals of Prison Life and Criminal Justice why the depiction of inmates and how they are shown is crucial to things like reform and improved policy.  

As explained, people are naturally attracted to subjects and issues that are mysterious, remote, and beyond their everyday experiences. The criminal justice system, crime, and life in prison fall into this category. For many individuals, prison life is an unfamiliar experience, and their primary knowledge about prisons, inmates, and the criminal justice system comes from the media, including fictional films and television series. Therefore, media representation attracts the audience by offering glimpses into these hidden or unknown worlds and often becomes their main source of understanding these topics. Films and television shows often depict prisons, prisoners, and law enforcement in dramatic and sometimes sensationalized ways. These portrayals can significantly shape how the public views these aspects of the criminal justice system. Studies have demonstrated that media representation can influence or reinforce particular beliefs and attitudes about prisons and crime.⁵  

In Fire Country, Bode is the ideal inmate. He had a respectable upbringing, a tragic backstory, and committed an ultimately forgiving crime. This makes him the perfect character to represent the inmate firefighter population. All of the people within the Three Rocks inmate firefighting program fit the mold of this ideal inmate too. Making the show appear to be a promotional video for the California Fire Camp Program.  

Police procedural or other shows that center around crime often see inmates or criminals in a bad light. If the cops are the good guys of the story, then that makes the offenders the villains or at the very least the bad guys of the story. They committed crimes, after all, it’s the police’s job to catch people who commit crimes. Shows like Fire Country are forced to flip this idea. They either make the cops the villains, which they can`t do in this case as there is an upcoming spin-off series or the show can disregard the cops altogether and just focus on the inmates. In turn, this makes the series more about the people and less about the system as a whole. This is an interesting approach to shows about criminals as usually the system and the institutions of the law are crucial to the plot and the end goals of the show.  

Sure, the idea of prison and the role of inmates are still crucial to the overall message and story of Fire Country, but the disaster of the week storytelling allows for Bode to just be Bode and not necessarily Bode man in prison for armed robbery. This kind of storytelling also distances the characters from their crimes, humanizing them, and allowing them to be more than just their rap sheet.  

This way of thinking is typically not normal. Prisons, especially the people within them have, since the inception of prisons, been dehumanized and seen as irredeemable. Justin Piché and Kevin Walby have noted that “dominant stereotypes of prisoners as predatory animals in need of incapacitation.”⁶ In her paper, Humanizing American Prisons, Margaret Graham talks about her time teaching college prep and GED courses in prison.⁷ She looks back on her time not in fear or terror but rather fondness and compassion. This isn’t to say violence doesn’t happen in prison, of course it does, prison violence between inmates, guards, and gangs is a very real and very serious issue. The current state of the American prison system is one of capitalism and profits. This means often negating vital programs that address addiction, mental health, and physical health. Additionally, the system as it stands is one full of corruption, and abuse of power. Researchers also find that public facilities tend to be safer than their private counterparts and that “privately operated prisons appear to have systemic problems in maintaining secure facilities.⁸” Guards in private facilities are often paid less than their public counterparts and often lack proper job training. All of these things combine into a firestorm of mistreatment, negligence, and in some cases violence.  

This is something that Graham also addresses in her paper,  

By treating prisoners with brutality and contempt, as animals just waiting to pounce on their prey, the guards demonstrated the very uncivil, immature, illogical, and instinctive behaviours they ascribe to the prisoners. Yet the guards were rarely held accountable for their actions in the prisons (Jeffrey Ross, Richard Tewksbury, and Shawn Rolfe) and only held accountable outside the prison when their paramilitary brothers in law enforcement deemed the crimes sufficiently heinous. Thus, the cycles of violence and dehumanization spread far beyond the walls of the prison to the communities and society at large.⁹  

She continues by saying that the prison system tells these people that they are animals, and thus many both inside the system and outside start to believe it and act upon it. 

Additionally, inmates are placed in a difficult position while occupying both vulnerable and hazardous sectors within the prison landscape. While in prison, inmates typically lack the autonomy that they need to respond to emergencies. Inmates are held by the whims of the guards and the institution as a whole, leading to an overall lack of preparedness and emergency plans. This is something that Jordan Carlee Smith discusses,  

Emergency planning resources within corrections systems are primarily devoted to preparing for and preventing violence and disorder from the inmate population, reflecting the perspective that inmates are inherently hazardous. 

…  

The primary goal of emergency management within the field of corrections is to protect the community from inmates who represent a threat and a hazard. Thus, when the broader community is assured of protection from the possible hazard of an inmate and corrections staff are confident in their protection from the threat of inmate disorder and violence, only then can the inmate population be viewed as vulnerable and worthy of protection from harm or infringement on their rights.¹⁰ 

This inmate-focused emergency management disregards other emergencies that could happen. Things like natural disasters, structural emergencies, and other external emergencies are ill-prepared for, and this makes inmates especially susceptible to injury and death, Smith notes, 

Of those under the supervision of the U.S. justice system, prisoners are particularly vulnerable in emergencies such as natural and technological disasters. Inmates are uniquely unable to provide and care for themselves, compared to the general population and other institutionalized populations due to their containment within a correctional facility. Inmates must fully rely on the correctional institution to ensure their safety and welfare.¹¹ 

This was seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at Orleans Parish Prison. According to the American Civil Liberties Union 2006 report “Abandoned and Abused,” during the events of the hurricane, inmates were abandoned in their locked cell by deputies and other staff. When the sewage-contaminated water was chest-high, inmates were forced to ride it out, with no means of help or escape. The inmates were also left without access to food and water.¹²  

Since the main villain of the show is fire and disaster, Fire Country is less about the crimes that Bode (and friends) committed and more about the consequences of their actions and where they can go moving forward. The show, despite being about inmate firefighters, is not about the systems that allow for such jobs. Because of this, the show has a very hopeful message and manner of storytelling. We want Bode to succeed in the program, and we want his friends to succeed in the program, hell, we even want the program itself to succeed. The sympathetic nature of the cast lends to the importance and the validity of the CAL FIRE’s inmate program itself.  

The job of an inmate firefighter is difficult and immensely dangerous. A fire chief at CAL FIRE described the work the incarcerated firefighters perform: “When the hose can’t get stretched anymore, or the bulldozer can’t go, or even the helicopter can’t reach, these guys have to hike in and physically put a line around the fire to contain it.¹³” Inmate firefighters are generally hand-crews, usually using only hand and power tools to stop the movement of fires. Despite the many risks around inmate firefighters, California relies heavily on them to fight fires and tend to other disasters. In 2021 about 1,600 prisoners were working at fire camps in California and at any given time it is estimated they make up between 50-80% of an onsite crew.¹⁴ 

And not just anyone can be an incarcerated firefighter, an inmate must volunteer for the fire camp program. They must have also maintained “minimum custody” status, or the lowest classification for inmates based on their sustained good behaviour in prison. With many participants spending at minimum one year in a typical prison facility. Thus the move to an outdoor, lower security place is seen as a privilege.¹⁵ Despite the dangers, the program is very competitive and a highly desirable position among inmates. It is also the highest-paid inmate labour position, currently making between $5.80-10.24 daily plus an additional $1 an hour. There is currently an Assembly bill in the State of California that would allow for inmate firefighters to be paid an hourly wage equivalent to that of the lowest-paid nonincarcerated firefighter in the state for the time of active duty.¹⁶ This bill would also allow eligible participants to be offered two days of credit, instead of the current one per day served. This increase is obviously good, but will likely come with great opposition. The current payment scheme saves the State of California about $100 million annually according to a CAL FIRE chief, “If you had to pay minimum wage, the cost of these fires would generally go up quite dynamically.¹⁷”  

In September 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that would allow successful participants of the fire camp program could apply to have their records expunged, allowing them to transition into firefighting career paths.¹⁸ This is great, as often the two main issues facing the newly released from prison are economic struggles and under or unemployment. In Brady L. Root`s paper, California’s Incarcerated Firefighters are Owed the Minimum Wage, he outlines this problem,  

Fair pay for hard work is crucial to allowing incarcerated individuals to remake their lives and meaningfully contribute economically to the society they will eventually reenter. Recently, California attempted to create a pathway to regular firefighting work for those who fought fires while incarcerated and have since been released. The state’s willingness to create this pathway demonstrates that it understands the work performed by free and incarcerated firefighters to be substantially the same and that many well-qualified formerly incarcerated workers do not receive fair compensation for firefighting work even after they have left prison. 

Once outside those walls, the economic and employment realities for previously incarcerated individuals are dire. Most will be underemployed or unemployed five years after release. They are ten times more likely than the non-incarcerated public to encounter homelessness. Most employers say they “probably” or “definitely” will not hire previously incarcerated individuals.¹⁹ 

Prison labour is a system that requires low-level offenders to do vital services like fighter fighting and disaster relief. So, any policy created to divert these people from entering the prison system will also be detrimental to important services that a state can provide. This was brought to light in 2014 around the discussions around Proposition 47, a referendum that reclassified some crimes like personal use of drugs and shoplifting from felonies to misdemeanours. This was in an attempt to solve the crisis of overcrowded prisons and give the state the ability to divert funds into crime prevention programs.  

There is evidence to support the claim that utilizing inmate labour as a substitute for emergency responders provides further incentives for states to pass harsher penal policies or to refrain from reforming past harsh policies, though much more research is needed. In November of 2014, California passed the controversial Prop. 47, a policy aimed at decreasing the presence of low-level nonviolent offenders in an overcrowded prison system. This policy [Prop. 47] drew backlash and criticism from many who argued the policy would reduce the number of inmates available and eligible to participate in fighting wildfires during the state’s dangerous wildfire season. Most notably, California Attorney General Kamala Harris argued against the policy out of the belief it would deplete the inmate labour force impacting the state’s ability to combat wildfires. She argued the policy would produce, “a dangerous outcome while California is in the middle of a difficult fire season and severe drought.²⁰ 

Fire Country can side-step a lot of this conversation by generally not addressing it. The show doesn’t see inmate firefighting programs as underpaid labour, it sees it as an opportunity for self-discovery and purpose. And sure, that’s fine, again this show isn’t some deep investigation into prison labour. At times this show leans soapier, than action. The characters could have been ripped from a soap opera for all I know. The show, in general, is seemingly disinterested in conversations around criminal justice unless they pertain directly to Bode. Conversations around probation, getting sent out of the fire camp and back to prison, and the lack of available jobs after a sentence ends are only discussed because they directly affect Bode.  

This is my main criticism of the show. Bode Leone. Every conversation, action, and setting is built around the man. If there was some deranged version of the Bechdel Test where you replaced “men” with “Bode Leone” then, I don’t think there is any point in which this show would pass. All of the characters are designed in service of Bode Leone. Their actions, although not always directly, impact him and every decision caters to his interests in some capacity. And I know what you’re about to say, “Um actually he’s the main character, of course, everyone likes and talks about him.” And sure, he’s the main character, but I don’t think you understand how much the plot of this show revolves around him. For having an “ensemble cast” Bode freaking Leone is portrayed as being holier than thou and seemingly the only important character.  

As previously mentioned, Bode Leone is designed to be the perfect inmate and because of that, many of the conversations that could happen around criminal justice and the prison system don’t have to happen. Bodes is not inherently violent nor does he suffer from disenfranchisement, he isn’t a part of a racialized minority, nor did he face economic challenges growing up. He’s just like you, a random white middle-class man, and given an array of circumstances, he could be you.  

Bode had a perfect home life, he profited largely from nepotism, and he had an excellent support system. This makes him not only the perfect candidate for the fire camp program but also the perfect character to allow for prison voyeurism. In turn, he is the perfect candidate for rehabilitation. The discord around rehabilitation over punishment is massive and highly contentious. To make matters more difficult, there are also lots of conflicting ideas around what is considered rehabilitation, and what role the criminal justice system should have in it. When looking at the program, as just a program, it appears that the sole goal is to save money. In California Code, Public Resources Code § 4951, the code that allows for the running of the California Conservation Camp program, states that the mission of the program is “to provide for the training and use of the inmates and wards assigned to conservation camps in the furtherance of public conservation.” 

It is the policy of this state to require the inmates and wards assigned to such camps to perform public conservation projects including, but not limited to, forest fire prevention and control, forest and watershed management, recreation, fish and game management, soil conservation and forest and watershed revegetation.²¹

This falls in line with the low wages and poor working conditions seen in these programs. If the intent is a cost-saving measure, then rehabilitation would be seen as an additional cost that isn’t justified within the policy surrounding the program. It’s further noted that any attempts of rehabilitation seen within the program are not supplementary, rather they are the job itself. In his paper “Another Second Chance,” Philip Goodman looks at the role of rehabilitation within the program.  

The most common version of rehabilitation via work ethic is the mantra that those imprisoned in the camps benefit from having to get up at a certain time every morning, without fail, as well as being required to get ready for work and arrive on time (and respond quickly to fire calls when on duty). I was told scores of times that putting your boots on in the morning will teach you to be a better worker (and, by implication, a better citizen); implicit is the idea that this will keep you out of trouble (and prison) in the future.²² 

He further explains that the contemporary discourse around rehabilitation has shifted towards “responsibilization” or the idea that people are the “arbiters of their own fate and conduct.” So, in other words, the inmate is solely responsible for their own rehabilitation. This gives the fire camp program the ability to further its reliance on work ethic-focused training, over anything substantive that would allow for more opportunities after prison. As previously mentioned, most inmate firefighters don’t go on to be firefighters after release.  

But what do the people within the system think about it? In Confessions of an Inmate Firefighter, a blog post of sorts on the International Associations of Wildland Fires website, Joshua Daniel Bligh said, 

While aware of the pathetic little money we were making risking our lives and working our fingers to the bone, I learned valuable skills and through the experience was able to feel like I was giving back to the society which by my actions had wronged, and removed myself from. When I sense outrage and shock in the faces of the contract crews who hear how little we make for the work we do, I remember that I could have been sitting in a prison cell in the penitentiary. I think a lot of inmate firefighters feel the same way. We work hard because we are grateful. We work hard because we are fallen and in need of redemption in the eyes of our community. We work hard because we were given the opportunity to. We work hard not because we can support our families with the income but support the mentality we will need if we are to make it when we are released back into society as an ex-convict, a disadvantaged minority group.²³

As an inmate within the Oregon Department of Corrections, Bligh fought fire with the Oregon Department of Forestry. He saw much of his time within the program as a way to redeem himself for his past wrongdoings, and the program allowed him to give back to his community in a way that wasn’t possible behind bars. I don’t think this mentality or experiences similar to this should be negated, but it takes a person who is already in the mindset of “responsibilization” for the program to work to the fullest extent.  

In Goodman’s paper, he talks with incarcerated firefighters about the extent of rehabilitation seen within the program. One interviewee named Paul said,  

And there’s really a limited opportunity to become a firefighter when you’re a felon. So [inaudi- ble]. I wouldn’t consider it totally unnecessary knowledge or experience, but what are you going to do with it? Really. Are you offering us employment? Guaranteed job placement after this term is over? Then I could see the rehabilitation or possible rehabilitation. But [it’s not rehabilitation if it’s] just: come in here, help put back some of the community together, some projects and see you later. Here’s your little 45 cents an hour. 

I think a true rehabilitation would be a program that offers like SAP [Substance Abuse Program]. For example, I’m hearing this SAP thing, if you’re in a SAP program, they’re offering you placement outside to get your life together. To save money and to teach you job skills. As opposed to this, in contrast here, here you work your ass off, you made a little money, goodbye. We’re not going to hire you as a firefighter. We’re going to give you a certificate that’s a credential that you’re not ever going to be able to use. What are you really going to do with it, you know?²⁴ 

Another inmate, Brooklyn said, 

It could be a rehabilitation if you want it. You gotta’ want it.²⁵ 

I don’t want the takeaway from this essay to be that these camps only do bad things or that their only job is to exploit inmates because that’s disingenuous and ultimately not true. People do receive help and rehabilitation within the program, which is great, but that’s ultimately not the intent and many people do slip through the cracks. It should also be noted that just because the participants get something out of their time doesn’t mean it’s not exploitation and that they are still being taken advantage of.  

The Fair Labor Standards Act is a law that ensures minimum wage and overtime pay to those who work above a standard 40-hour work week. As previously mentioned, this isn’t something that applies to inmate labour, additionally, the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery, maintains that involuntary servitude or labour can still exist in the United States as long as it is a punishment for a crime. Punishment for crime within a system that still disproportionately impacts people of colour, especially black Americans, who make up 34% of the prison population.²⁶ Crime “prevention” programs like the war on drugs, incentivize police agencies to make more arrests ultimately increasing the number of incarcerated people. These programs exist with or without prison labour, yet the idea of corporations benefiting from the increased rate of incarceration makes any type of reform or substantial policy changes more difficult. Additionally, workplace safety measures like OSHA, are also not mandatory within carceral labour practice and the safety of inmates is left to the idea of “reasonable care” practices.²⁷  

None of these issues are addressed in the show Fire Country. Bode is expected to get a job after his release, but he also has a support system that he can fall back on should he not succeed. Same for money, I’m sure Body would love to be financially independent, but he has people around him who would very much like the privilege of helping him. Because of this, both Body and the systems that surround him are depicted and portrayed as being inherently good. CAL FIRE, although not depicted as flawless, is shown to be this amazing organization that wants what’s best for everyone. Because of this, CAL FIRE is presented in a relatively good light. They are the good guys in this story, they are putting out fires, saving the day, and doing good things for the prison population. Look at all the great things they are doing for the state of California and its people. Bode and Co. get life skills, a sense of pride, and a way to right the wrongs of the past, a true redemption story. CAL FIRE is shown in such a good light that they must love this show and all of the attention it has given them.  

Right?  

CAL FIRE hates this show. They’ve disavowed it, wanted to take legal action, and actively distanced themselves from it. All those things I said earlier about the show making CAL FIRE look good, are lost in the eyes of the agency. In a Los Angeles Times article Tim Edwards, the president of Cal Fire’s union, Local 2881, said  

“I want to emphasize that we were not involved in the creation or production of the show, and we do not endorse the series,” he wrote in that email. “We have spoken with our legal team, and we cannot prevent the series from airing or using the Cal Fire name.”²⁸ 

Cal Fire’s director, Joe Tyler has similar comments saying,  

“This television series is a misrepresentation of the professional all-hazards fire department and resource protection agency that Cal Fire is.”²⁹ 

In the same article former firefighter and consultant for the show Jeff Snider, defended Fire Country by saying,  

[He] thinks the reason Cal Fire spoke up about “Fire Country” — even though it’s not typical to find, say, the New York Police Department commenting on the realism of “Law and Order” — is because “just in general with firefighters, we are very good at finding the flaw with each other,” he said. “I was jokingly saying, ‘If you take five random firefighters and put them in front of a fire service training video, they’ll tear it apart.’ Like, they’re gonna find where the glove wasn’t quite right, that guy shouldn’t be standing there, that helmet’s twisted partway — we are pretty ruthless..”³⁰ 

Showrunner and star of the show Max Thieriot said,  

“The idea for this show was only with good intent. It’s an intense job and a heroic one,”³¹

I don’t really see where this criticism is coming from. Again, I think that the depiction of CAL FIRE in the show is one of opulence, heroism, and inherent goodness. I also think that saying a drama/action show has too much drama and action is akin to watching Transformers and claiming that there are just too many darn robots, you get what’s on the box when it comes to this show. This isn’t to say that this show can’t be critiqued, you’ve likely spent the past 30 minutes hearing me critique the show, but if that wasn’t enough here’s more of my problems with the show.  

Also, just because a show isn’t inherently accurate or good, doesn’t mean it can’t still be used as propaganda to further a cause or agency. This is seen a lot with the depiction of the American military, in things like action movies and video games. Media can be considered bad, or inaccurate and still push the agenda of an organization. I’m not saying Fire Country has some alternate agenda here, but it is worth noting that it shows the ability to only depict kindness and a willingness to look past a lot of unsavoury things, which is what makes CAL FIRE’s depiction so inherently good. And in my opinion, that’s worth scrutinizing and looking at critically. 

CAL FIRE claims that the depictions of firefighting in the show are inaccurate, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it sure looks like a cool and heroic job. This is a great way to recruit people to become firefighters. In the wake of the Palisades Fire earlier this month, Los Angeles Fire Chief Marrone said in a press conference,  

“No, L.A. County and all 29 fire departments in our county, are not prepared for this kind of widespread disaster. There are not enough firefighters in L.A. County to address four separate fires of this magnitude. The L.A. County fire department was prepared for one or two major brush fires, but not four, especially given these sustained winds and low humidities.”³² 

Additionally, the California State Government is looking at adding 2,400 state firefighters to CAL FIRE’s ranks over the next five years.³³ This requires an increased need for recruitment and expanding pre-existing programs. In Sejin Park, Zienab Shoieb, and Ronald E. Taylor’s article “Message Strategies in Military Recruitment Advertising,” they talk about how military recruitment and advertisement are often the same thing. They see one of the main functions of recruitment as actively improving the image of the military, intern recruiting people.³⁴ They go on to explain that this is somewhat of a two-for-one deal and allows the military to target specific demographics that may typically be under-represented while also making itself look like a viable and good decision. This same line of thinking isn’t exclusive to the military nor is advertisement only commercials. American filmmaker Oliver Stone said, “Most films about the military are recruitment posters.”³⁵ I think the same can be said for other organizations that require mass recruitment to function and provide services.  

With a longer fire season and more wildfires, there is a high demand for firefighters. Researchers at the University of Maryland calculated that between the years 2001 to 2023, the area burned by forest fires increased by about 5.4% per year.³⁶ Climate change has led to more heat waves, drying out the land and, in turn making forests and other wildlands more susceptible to fires. These fires create more carbon, quickening the effects of climate change. This loop makes the threat of wildfire more, and more serious. It also makes the demands and the role of firefighters vital to the protection of land and lives.  

This increased demand also brings with it means to exploit both the workers and those affected by the fires. With the emergence of private firefighting firms and a lack of support for public firefighting staff, a clear imbalance is discovered. People who can afford to have their properties saved, and those who can’t. During the Palisades Fires billionaire developer Rick Caruso hired private crews to defend his Palisades Village mall.³⁷ Additionally, private firms are allowed to access public resources like fire hydrants, further straining the work that can be done by government teams. When water runs out, it’s important to look at whose property is being saved, and to what extent it’ll be protected. This was the case in LA, as some hydrants ran dry due to a lack of development and maintenance of the reservoir system in the state.³⁸ The threat to public safety these firms pose goes beyond land protection as they also have a tendency to get themselves in trouble, requiring the help and resources of an already strained public system. In an interview California Assembly Majority Leader Aguiar-Curry said, 

“The public thought the private firefighters were public firefighters, which gave a false sense of security that there was emergency response in their neighborhoods. Private firefighters were going into evacuation areas without prior authorization. In a couple of (instances) they had to be rescued, which put emergency personnel at risk.³⁹” 

There is also no way for public, government-led, firefighters to vet the credentials of private workers. Captain Dan Collins, a spokesperson for Cal Fire on the Palisades Fire, said he couldn’t confirm whether or not private firms were authorized to enter the fire. Captain Collins also said that many private, non-government fire crews, who work for insurers or homeowners might not be fully trained or to the extent of regular firefighters.⁴⁰ 

The role of good propaganda is to convince people of something. Whether that’s to recruit someone to the cause or assure them that a program is good and necessary. When you have a show about incarcerated firefighters there is a good chance that, despite its intentions, it’ll argue that they serve a necessary place within society. This place can be one where rehabilitation happens, and participants are given a new meaning to life. Or it can foster out of necessity, a need for more people to fight fires. I’m not saying that Fire Country is a malicious ploy to get people into being OK with exploiting the prison population, I don’t think the show is smart enough for that, but rather, it’s familiarizing the idea of incarcerated firefighters to a previously unaware population. Integrating the idea into the public consciousness makes more and more people alright with the idea. Because who knows, maybe one day, it won’t be a volunteer position.  

Fire Country is a TV show and it wants to be the the most relevant thing on network television. It’s a show with only two things to say 1) firefighters are cool as hell, and 2) we’ll need a lot more of them in the future, you can just ignore all of the other stuff. 

 

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In that Los Angeles Times article about CAL FIRE not liking the show, there is a quote from Tyler, that made me so mad and just proves the point that this isn’t about rehabilitation,  

“The legislators want to pay them as firefighters while they’re in the camps. So if you’re gonna pay someone that’s in jail, why not pay someone that’s actually worked their whole life and went to school to become a firefighter?”⁴¹ 

And like, what a quote. Nothing screams “we care about our people” quite like implying that they are expendable and are only useful as cheap, indentured labour. I’m sure Tyler is a good dude, or whatever, but like what a thing to say about a group of people risking their lives to help their community? Kind of put a bad taste in my mouth. 

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2. The Nature Conservancy California. 2023. “Building California’s Forest Resilience Workforce a CRITICAL GAP in INCREASING the PACE and SCALE of WILDFIRE PREVENTION.” https://www.scienceforconservation.org/assets/downloads/Building_CAs_Forest_Resilience_Workforce.pdf.  ↩︎
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40. Mello, Felicia. 2025. “Private Firefighters Are Increasingly Popular with Insurers. But Do They Pose a Risk?” CalMatters. January 17, 2025. https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/private-firefighters-insurers/.  ↩︎
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