BBC:
A volunteer fire-fighting corps made up of state prisoners, which has helped the state battle blazes since World War Two, has been diminished this year due to the pandemic.
Cal Fire’s union leadership began sounding the alarm about a depletion of resources in the spring, when the COVID outbreak triggered early releases from prisons and with that, a loss of hundreds of inmate firefighters who annually help set up defensive lines around wildfires. Inmate firefighters make up about 43% of Cal Fire’s firefighting force.
Since the outbreak began, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has released more than 800 inmate firefighters, with about 600 of those releases coming since July.
“A combination of expedited and natural releases have contributed to the recent decrease in the conservation camp population,” CDCR spokesman Aaron Francis said in an email.
California’s economic recovery will depend on whether the federal government can enact more stimulus measures, including unemployment benefits, and on curbing the COVID-19 infection rate, said David Smith, an economist at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School.
“It looks like a long road ahead where we are going to have to punch, kick and crawl our way back to anything near historically normal employment,” he added.
This image prompts questions: as Californians crawl their way back to anything near historically normal employment who is being punched? Who is being kicked?