What do you think?
Rate this book
Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California's Wildfires
California’s fire season gets hotter, longer, and more extreme every year — fire season is now year-round. Of the thousands of firefighters who battle California’s blazes every year, roughly 30 percent of the on-the-ground wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. Approximately 200 of those firefighters are women serving on all-female crews.
In Breathing Fire, Jaime Lowe expands on her revelatory work for The New York Times Magazine. She has spent years getting to know dozens of women who have participated in the fire camp program and spoken to captains, family and friends, correctional officers, and camp commanders. The result is a look at how the fire camps actually operate — a story that encompasses California’s underlying catastrophes of climate change, economic disparity, and historical injustice, but also draws on deeply personal histories, relationships, desires, frustrations, and the emotional and physical intensity of firefighting.
In Breathing Fire, Jaime Lowe expands on her revelatory work for The New York Times Magazine. She has spent years getting to know dozens of women who have participated in the fire camp program and spoken to captains, family and friends, correctional officers, and camp commanders. The result is a look at how the fire camps actually operate — a story that encompasses California’s underlying catastrophes of climate change, economic disparity, and historical injustice, but also draws on deeply personal histories, relationships, desires, frustrations, and the emotional and physical intensity of firefighting.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published July 27, 2021
65 people are currently reading
3007 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews
June 26, 2021
Title does not match story
I thought this looked like a good book. I love reading about courageous women. The first 20 percent and a few parts after that were good. The rest of the book let me down.
This book was not so much about fire fighting. It was more about liberal conservation views and the penal system in California. I felt it was a bit political and I really do not want to read it in my books either right or left. Just wanted to read about courageous women fighting fires.
Some might really like it, but it was not for me. I did read the book, I read all the books I start. I was very much disappointed in the content.
Thanks to Jaime Lowe, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a copy of the book for an honest review which I have given.
I thought this looked like a good book. I love reading about courageous women. The first 20 percent and a few parts after that were good. The rest of the book let me down.
This book was not so much about fire fighting. It was more about liberal conservation views and the penal system in California. I felt it was a bit political and I really do not want to read it in my books either right or left. Just wanted to read about courageous women fighting fires.
Some might really like it, but it was not for me. I did read the book, I read all the books I start. I was very much disappointed in the content.
Thanks to Jaime Lowe, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a copy of the book for an honest review which I have given.
October 31, 2021
I really had no idea about the California Fire Schools that female inmates could apply to enroll in. I found it to be a fascinating program with many possibilities.
Sitting in cells when incarcerated has always seemed like a total waste of time. Our recidivism rates are truly pathetic. So, reading about this robust training felt promising. Women aren’t just given axes and saws and forced to work fires; they are simply given the opportunity to enroll. A side benefit is they get to live and work more in the outdoors. Sure there’s danger but probably no more than living in a large prison population. The future of CA wildfires looks worse than I imagined—way bigger, more frequent, more destruction.
When we send women out of prison with no skills and a family to care for, we are setting them up for failure. We need to send those in prison, for more than a year, back into society with a new skill, however small. Many of the ladies depicted in the book were unable to find legal work after being labeled felons.
Thus their children become the next casualties. Although I wish the focus had been narrowed to the fire training and it’s future impact, I appreciate the extensive research that went into writing this book.
Sitting in cells when incarcerated has always seemed like a total waste of time. Our recidivism rates are truly pathetic. So, reading about this robust training felt promising. Women aren’t just given axes and saws and forced to work fires; they are simply given the opportunity to enroll. A side benefit is they get to live and work more in the outdoors. Sure there’s danger but probably no more than living in a large prison population. The future of CA wildfires looks worse than I imagined—way bigger, more frequent, more destruction.
When we send women out of prison with no skills and a family to care for, we are setting them up for failure. We need to send those in prison, for more than a year, back into society with a new skill, however small. Many of the ladies depicted in the book were unable to find legal work after being labeled felons.
Thus their children become the next casualties. Although I wish the focus had been narrowed to the fire training and it’s future impact, I appreciate the extensive research that went into writing this book.
September 11, 2021
What a great and informative story. I never knew California uses female inmates to fight forest fires. With terrible fires and COVID-19 ravaging prisons, this became even more obvious to those of us who haven't paid any attention to that before. Without inmate firefighters, California might burn to the ground. What a deadly and difficult job the prisoners were made to do with very little pay. Shawna Jones, an inmate firefighter was due to be released in three months was killed fighting these dangerous fires.
I never knew that California's fire season is year round. About 30 percent of the wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. About 200 0f these firefighters are women. This is a fascinating book. Jaime Lowe gets access to about ten of these women from the prison system who are fighting these dangerous fires and gives the history of each. Their childhood history, the crimes they committed to end up in jail, their experiences with fire fighting and their lives after prison. A great book and author. Thanks Jaime Lowe for the great read. Highly recommend.
I never knew that California's fire season is year round. About 30 percent of the wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. About 200 0f these firefighters are women. This is a fascinating book. Jaime Lowe gets access to about ten of these women from the prison system who are fighting these dangerous fires and gives the history of each. Their childhood history, the crimes they committed to end up in jail, their experiences with fire fighting and their lives after prison. A great book and author. Thanks Jaime Lowe for the great read. Highly recommend.
March 20, 2022
Brilliantly researched and eye-opening information with journalistic storytelling good enough to hook you and have you reading the entire book in just a few sittings (if you’re an absolute madwoman like me.)
Breathing Fire weaves in and out of the lives of a crew of female inmate wild lands firefighters, recounting each individuals’ journey into and through the California Justice System, their harrowing experiences fighting California’s raging wildfires, and their lives post-Fire Camp/prison. Devoid of any attempt to sanitize raw histories or repaint the personas of her subjects, Lowe gives direct voice to these women’s oft silenced stories through longitudinal interviews with family members and inmates.
What gives this book such high merit lays not only in the incisive writing, but in how Lowe employs the lived experiences of the inmates to tell a broader story of the flawed American Justice system, a deep American history of labor exploitation, and the conservational failures that have built natural conditions which favor environmental disaster, specifically drought conditions which exacerbate California’s powerful fires.
I highly recommend this book if you wish for an interesting story that will help define and reshape your understanding of justice, prison reform, drug policy, labor exploitation, environmental disaster relief, and systemic racism/sexism in the United States.
🧠 My great takeaway (although there were many, check my reading activity) was this: the American capitalist machine requires unpaid labor and severely underpaid labor to function properly.
Proper functioning of the American Capitalist system means that class divisions exist to support consumption and production, cheap consumer products and (sometimes) public goods are widely available with an upward flow of profit towards the “owners” of the means of production/land. In order for goods to be cheap and accessible to the “middle and upper class”, the target consumers, the ownership class must be making a profit they deem palatable that will satiate their own greed and consumption “needs.” In order to reach target mammoth profit without pushing the cost onto consumers, they need to cut other costs of production. What better cost to cut than the pay of the laborers? Ideally, these laborers already exist in a position devoid of economic power (or so goes the popular ideology, it is in the capitalist’s best interest to convince a worker they are devoid of power), and are often unable to successfully vouch for their rights due to a litany of circumstances. Circumstances that often derive from systemically racist, classist, and sexist legislation that uphold the economic system.
This is one recipe for American labor exploitation, then:
1. Select a target group for exploitation. How about historically disenfranchised minorities? (Black Americans, Latin/central/Caribbean Americans, indigenous people, women, LGBTQ, undocumented, etc. etc... why not all?)
2. Now, figure out what scares the white people. Think of drugs, sex, xenophobia, sexual assault, transference of systemic power, or anything Fox News might tell your grandma on late night live TV.
3. Develop legislation based on those fears and implement police strategy to uphold said legislation. Think of the gang prevention data base (discussed in this book) wherein police can enter an individual for any reason... Mexican woman wearing red lipstick at a traffic stop? Might be a blood, input her in the system! Black baby wearing blue coveralls? Future crip, put him in! (True story, this actually happened.) Maybe try outlawing gay sex, have the police raid queer establishments and undercover hit on men multiple times a week: more prisoners! Weeee!
Now you’ve made arrests based on legislation that is meant to support the public good... and by public good, we’re talking about the white hetero capitalist patriarchy, let’s be honest. But what could be better than heavily punishing addicts with severe drug charges, targeting minority neighborhoods for traffic stops to find bags of weed, and criminalizing loitering for the public good? You’re almost ready to exploit labor...
4. Use existing legislation that allows incarcerated people to be used for “free labor”, aka slavery, and develop further legislation that will latch onto the bodies of felons, making it nearly impossible for them to break out of the “working class” upon release.
Congratulations! You now have an indentured slave wage labor class with little access to social support, upward mobility is a treat you dangle just out of reach, and you get to enjoy the fruits of your exploitation by swimming in crystal clear pools in Malibu while Monique, a 20 year old inmate firefighter doing 42 months for carrying a baggie of marijuana while being black, is paid $2.75 a day to prevent your Californian mansion from succumbing to the wall of flames that creeps nearby.
But nobody really cares about fires or inmates, not until Miley Cyrus tweets that her mansion burns down or Martha Stewart is sent to prison. I hope this book is a call to action for systemic change and can light the same inner fire for others that it did for me.
Breathing Fire weaves in and out of the lives of a crew of female inmate wild lands firefighters, recounting each individuals’ journey into and through the California Justice System, their harrowing experiences fighting California’s raging wildfires, and their lives post-Fire Camp/prison. Devoid of any attempt to sanitize raw histories or repaint the personas of her subjects, Lowe gives direct voice to these women’s oft silenced stories through longitudinal interviews with family members and inmates.
What gives this book such high merit lays not only in the incisive writing, but in how Lowe employs the lived experiences of the inmates to tell a broader story of the flawed American Justice system, a deep American history of labor exploitation, and the conservational failures that have built natural conditions which favor environmental disaster, specifically drought conditions which exacerbate California’s powerful fires.
I highly recommend this book if you wish for an interesting story that will help define and reshape your understanding of justice, prison reform, drug policy, labor exploitation, environmental disaster relief, and systemic racism/sexism in the United States.
🧠 My great takeaway (although there were many, check my reading activity) was this: the American capitalist machine requires unpaid labor and severely underpaid labor to function properly.
Proper functioning of the American Capitalist system means that class divisions exist to support consumption and production, cheap consumer products and (sometimes) public goods are widely available with an upward flow of profit towards the “owners” of the means of production/land. In order for goods to be cheap and accessible to the “middle and upper class”, the target consumers, the ownership class must be making a profit they deem palatable that will satiate their own greed and consumption “needs.” In order to reach target mammoth profit without pushing the cost onto consumers, they need to cut other costs of production. What better cost to cut than the pay of the laborers? Ideally, these laborers already exist in a position devoid of economic power (or so goes the popular ideology, it is in the capitalist’s best interest to convince a worker they are devoid of power), and are often unable to successfully vouch for their rights due to a litany of circumstances. Circumstances that often derive from systemically racist, classist, and sexist legislation that uphold the economic system.
This is one recipe for American labor exploitation, then:
1. Select a target group for exploitation. How about historically disenfranchised minorities? (Black Americans, Latin/central/Caribbean Americans, indigenous people, women, LGBTQ, undocumented, etc. etc... why not all?)
2. Now, figure out what scares the white people. Think of drugs, sex, xenophobia, sexual assault, transference of systemic power, or anything Fox News might tell your grandma on late night live TV.
3. Develop legislation based on those fears and implement police strategy to uphold said legislation. Think of the gang prevention data base (discussed in this book) wherein police can enter an individual for any reason... Mexican woman wearing red lipstick at a traffic stop? Might be a blood, input her in the system! Black baby wearing blue coveralls? Future crip, put him in! (True story, this actually happened.) Maybe try outlawing gay sex, have the police raid queer establishments and undercover hit on men multiple times a week: more prisoners! Weeee!
Now you’ve made arrests based on legislation that is meant to support the public good... and by public good, we’re talking about the white hetero capitalist patriarchy, let’s be honest. But what could be better than heavily punishing addicts with severe drug charges, targeting minority neighborhoods for traffic stops to find bags of weed, and criminalizing loitering for the public good? You’re almost ready to exploit labor...
4. Use existing legislation that allows incarcerated people to be used for “free labor”, aka slavery, and develop further legislation that will latch onto the bodies of felons, making it nearly impossible for them to break out of the “working class” upon release.
Congratulations! You now have an indentured slave wage labor class with little access to social support, upward mobility is a treat you dangle just out of reach, and you get to enjoy the fruits of your exploitation by swimming in crystal clear pools in Malibu while Monique, a 20 year old inmate firefighter doing 42 months for carrying a baggie of marijuana while being black, is paid $2.75 a day to prevent your Californian mansion from succumbing to the wall of flames that creeps nearby.
But nobody really cares about fires or inmates, not until Miley Cyrus tweets that her mansion burns down or Martha Stewart is sent to prison. I hope this book is a call to action for systemic change and can light the same inner fire for others that it did for me.
July 4, 2021
In ‘Breathing Fire,’ Jaime Lowe uncovers the benefits and drawbacks of California’s inmate fire program.
by Jenny Shank
High Country News, June 17, 2021, From the print edition
In 2016, a boulder struck and killed 22-year-old Shawna Jones while she battled the Mulholland Fire in Malibu, California. Jones was part of an inmate crew from Correctional Camp 13, making her the first incarcerated woman to die while fighting a fire since 1983, the year women first joined California’s inmate firefighting program, which started in 1946.
After Jones’ death, the Los Angeles Times published a bare-bones article about the incident. It revealed little about Jones, but it drew the attention of California-raised journalist Jaime Lowe, who was determined to discover more. Lowe’s years-long investigation resulted in Breathing Fire, an immersive, comprehensive look at Jones’ life and the lives of other incarcerated firefighters, as well as California’s history of inmate firefighting and its growing reliance on it. Given the new reality of California’s fire season, which “lasts 13 months,” as environmental historian Stephen J. Pyne puts it, often all that stands between a family’s home and a conflagration are the imprisoned people that labor, sometimes for 24 hours straight, to restrain the flames.
Incarcerated people comprise up to 30% of California’s wildland fire crews. At the time Lowe reported this book, around 200 of these firefighters were female, making up three out of California’s 35 inmate fire camps. Imprisoned people do difficult work, establishing “a line, usually a few feet wide, by cutting through trees and shrubs and removing anything that could burn.” For this grueling and risky labor, they earn $2.56 per day while in camp, and up to $2 an hour while fighting fires. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation estimated that paying such minuscule wages for this vital work, rather than the standard hourly rate, “saved the state at least $1.2 billion” over 13 years.
Lowe delves into California’s history of compulsory labor, including a cruel law passed in 1850 that allowed white people to accuse Indigenous people of lacking employment, whereupon they could be arrested and sold into four months of slavery at a public auction. Lowe draws a direct line from this to the inmate labor that contributed to the construction of much of California’s infrastructure, including building the Pacific Coast Highway and carving out the 22-mile stretch of land to create Sunset Boulevard. When World War II brought personnel shortages, corrections officers began forcing incarcerated people to fight fires.
Lowe vividly paints the realities of present-day firefighting. Her precise descriptions of sensory details — the air is “congested with blackened particles” — and firefighting and inmate lingo make readers feel as if they’re in camp with the women, jumping out of bunks at the 3 a.m. siren and piling into a buggy to race off toward a roaring wildfire. Lowe also weaves in accounts of the women’s lives, including their stints in standard prison facilities before they joined the firefighting program. Most were sentenced for drug offenses, as only nonviolent offenders who complete an intense training regimen can join the program. But even though her interviewees see the benefits of their work, Lowe notes that “most bristled at the idea that they volunteered.” When an incarcerated woman wants to avoid the trauma of prison, from sexual assault to solitary confinement, “she might be looking for any alternative,” Lowe writes. “She might even be willing to risk her life.”
Breathing Fire doesn’t shy away from complicated truths. For many women, the program offers relative dignity and purpose compared to the grim realities of incarceration. Besides receiving good food and exercise, they get to live in the forest of Malibu, where their families can visit them under pine trees rather than the fluorescent lights of a prison. Fire-threatened residents hold up signs to thank them for their work. Because the forestry programs are popular among imprisoned people, talked up as “a prison Shangri-La — lobster, shrimp, ocean breezes,” there is no sustained opposition to them, despite the low pay. But even these benefits are short-lived: Formerly incarcerated people face many obstacles if they seek to build a career in firefighting, given laws that prevent the state from hiring ex-felons and parolees. As Lowe pieces together Shawna Jones’ story through public records and interviews with her fellow inmate firefighters, family and friends, it becomes clear that Jones felt the firefighting program turned her life around. Had she lived, she would have tried to pursue it as a career.
In recent years, the firefighting program has dwindled. In 2016, 65% of California voters approved Proposition 57, which allows nonviolent felons with convictions for multiple crimes to seek early parole after they complete the full sentence for their most significant crime. Its backers aimed to ease prison overcrowding, but it also depleted the pool of potential firefighters. The proposition highlighted a point that David Fathi, the director of the ACLU National Prison Project, expressed to Lowe: “If these people are safe to be out and about and carrying axes and chainsaws, maybe they didn’t need to be in prison in the first place.” In the meantime, as questions surrounding criminal justice loom, the megafires will continue to rage, keeping California in perpetual need of firefighters.
Jenny Shank’s story collection, "Mixed Company," won the George Garrett Fiction Prize, and will be published by Texas Review Press in October 2021. Her novel "The Ringer" won the High Plains Book Award.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.7/ideas...
by Jenny Shank
High Country News, June 17, 2021, From the print edition
In 2016, a boulder struck and killed 22-year-old Shawna Jones while she battled the Mulholland Fire in Malibu, California. Jones was part of an inmate crew from Correctional Camp 13, making her the first incarcerated woman to die while fighting a fire since 1983, the year women first joined California’s inmate firefighting program, which started in 1946.
After Jones’ death, the Los Angeles Times published a bare-bones article about the incident. It revealed little about Jones, but it drew the attention of California-raised journalist Jaime Lowe, who was determined to discover more. Lowe’s years-long investigation resulted in Breathing Fire, an immersive, comprehensive look at Jones’ life and the lives of other incarcerated firefighters, as well as California’s history of inmate firefighting and its growing reliance on it. Given the new reality of California’s fire season, which “lasts 13 months,” as environmental historian Stephen J. Pyne puts it, often all that stands between a family’s home and a conflagration are the imprisoned people that labor, sometimes for 24 hours straight, to restrain the flames.
Incarcerated people comprise up to 30% of California’s wildland fire crews. At the time Lowe reported this book, around 200 of these firefighters were female, making up three out of California’s 35 inmate fire camps. Imprisoned people do difficult work, establishing “a line, usually a few feet wide, by cutting through trees and shrubs and removing anything that could burn.” For this grueling and risky labor, they earn $2.56 per day while in camp, and up to $2 an hour while fighting fires. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation estimated that paying such minuscule wages for this vital work, rather than the standard hourly rate, “saved the state at least $1.2 billion” over 13 years.
Lowe delves into California’s history of compulsory labor, including a cruel law passed in 1850 that allowed white people to accuse Indigenous people of lacking employment, whereupon they could be arrested and sold into four months of slavery at a public auction. Lowe draws a direct line from this to the inmate labor that contributed to the construction of much of California’s infrastructure, including building the Pacific Coast Highway and carving out the 22-mile stretch of land to create Sunset Boulevard. When World War II brought personnel shortages, corrections officers began forcing incarcerated people to fight fires.
Lowe vividly paints the realities of present-day firefighting. Her precise descriptions of sensory details — the air is “congested with blackened particles” — and firefighting and inmate lingo make readers feel as if they’re in camp with the women, jumping out of bunks at the 3 a.m. siren and piling into a buggy to race off toward a roaring wildfire. Lowe also weaves in accounts of the women’s lives, including their stints in standard prison facilities before they joined the firefighting program. Most were sentenced for drug offenses, as only nonviolent offenders who complete an intense training regimen can join the program. But even though her interviewees see the benefits of their work, Lowe notes that “most bristled at the idea that they volunteered.” When an incarcerated woman wants to avoid the trauma of prison, from sexual assault to solitary confinement, “she might be looking for any alternative,” Lowe writes. “She might even be willing to risk her life.”
Breathing Fire doesn’t shy away from complicated truths. For many women, the program offers relative dignity and purpose compared to the grim realities of incarceration. Besides receiving good food and exercise, they get to live in the forest of Malibu, where their families can visit them under pine trees rather than the fluorescent lights of a prison. Fire-threatened residents hold up signs to thank them for their work. Because the forestry programs are popular among imprisoned people, talked up as “a prison Shangri-La — lobster, shrimp, ocean breezes,” there is no sustained opposition to them, despite the low pay. But even these benefits are short-lived: Formerly incarcerated people face many obstacles if they seek to build a career in firefighting, given laws that prevent the state from hiring ex-felons and parolees. As Lowe pieces together Shawna Jones’ story through public records and interviews with her fellow inmate firefighters, family and friends, it becomes clear that Jones felt the firefighting program turned her life around. Had she lived, she would have tried to pursue it as a career.
In recent years, the firefighting program has dwindled. In 2016, 65% of California voters approved Proposition 57, which allows nonviolent felons with convictions for multiple crimes to seek early parole after they complete the full sentence for their most significant crime. Its backers aimed to ease prison overcrowding, but it also depleted the pool of potential firefighters. The proposition highlighted a point that David Fathi, the director of the ACLU National Prison Project, expressed to Lowe: “If these people are safe to be out and about and carrying axes and chainsaws, maybe they didn’t need to be in prison in the first place.” In the meantime, as questions surrounding criminal justice loom, the megafires will continue to rage, keeping California in perpetual need of firefighters.
Jenny Shank’s story collection, "Mixed Company," won the George Garrett Fiction Prize, and will be published by Texas Review Press in October 2021. Her novel "The Ringer" won the High Plains Book Award.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.7/ideas...
July 22, 2021
California uses inmates to fight forest fires. In 2020 with terrible fires and with COVID-19 ravaging prisons, this became even more obvious to those of us who haven't paid any attention to that before. Without inmate firefighters, California might burn to the ground. Obviously, it's a difficult, potentially deadly job. And we pay them peanuts for it.
Ms. Lowe follows the story of Shawna Jones, an inmate firefighter who was due to be released in 3 months, who was killed by falling debris while clearing brush during a wildfire. She goes back to Shawna's childhood and youth to what lead to her being incarcerated. She also talks to other women on Shawna's line and other women in the firefighting service at the same time, and how they were affected by her death, and what lead to them being in the prison system.
This is a harrowing and heart-wrenching story but it also shows how close to the edge the state of California is in fighting these fires (and why fighting them is part of the problem.) It also shows the frustrating results of an excellent program that produces trained firefighters... who then can't be employed anywhere in the state of California. They can only work for the federal government, which has fewer firefighting jobs that are harder to get and not as many that are local. One woman does manage to do that. But it's a high hurdle, instead of a road to a job and career that can change lives. Which just emphasizes that it's not truly rehabilitation, if we're teaching them skills they can't use. It's just a way to get professional firefighters for $5 a day.
Ms. Lowe follows the story of Shawna Jones, an inmate firefighter who was due to be released in 3 months, who was killed by falling debris while clearing brush during a wildfire. She goes back to Shawna's childhood and youth to what lead to her being incarcerated. She also talks to other women on Shawna's line and other women in the firefighting service at the same time, and how they were affected by her death, and what lead to them being in the prison system.
This is a harrowing and heart-wrenching story but it also shows how close to the edge the state of California is in fighting these fires (and why fighting them is part of the problem.) It also shows the frustrating results of an excellent program that produces trained firefighters... who then can't be employed anywhere in the state of California. They can only work for the federal government, which has fewer firefighting jobs that are harder to get and not as many that are local. One woman does manage to do that. But it's a high hurdle, instead of a road to a job and career that can change lives. Which just emphasizes that it's not truly rehabilitation, if we're teaching them skills they can't use. It's just a way to get professional firefighters for $5 a day.
May 13, 2022
I read this for book club and came away learning a lot about the prison system and specifically the female inmate firefighters of California. I didn't even know inmate firefighters were a thing--in California, they make up about 30% of the firefighters. It was a heartbreaking read as the author followed inmate after inmate that was incarcerated due to substance or alcohol use. It made for a fantastic discussion.
The author tried to weave together various stories as they all related to one inmate, but it resulted in a very choppy and at times confusing read. However, it was interesting as we learned about various women she got to know during this book. She did do a great job highlighting the toll prison takes on families (especially children), how the three-strike rule might do more harm than good, how inmate firefighters need a better and easier way to apply those skills when they are free, the poor wages and treatment of inmate workers and firefighters, the inadequate facilities and healthcare provided to and for the inmates, and some of the general hardships of prison life. This was not a light read and has some pretty heavy stuff.
At the end of the day, I'd recommend if it you're looking for something new or are interested in the justice system or prisons, etc. but I think you need to be aware it's heavy.
A quote I wanted to remember from one of the women she interviewed about prison and family:
"You're supposed to be doing the time but they're doing the time with you. Prison wasn't hard because of the fighting... I could handle that. It was knowing how much my family suffered because of what I did."
The author tried to weave together various stories as they all related to one inmate, but it resulted in a very choppy and at times confusing read. However, it was interesting as we learned about various women she got to know during this book. She did do a great job highlighting the toll prison takes on families (especially children), how the three-strike rule might do more harm than good, how inmate firefighters need a better and easier way to apply those skills when they are free, the poor wages and treatment of inmate workers and firefighters, the inadequate facilities and healthcare provided to and for the inmates, and some of the general hardships of prison life. This was not a light read and has some pretty heavy stuff.
At the end of the day, I'd recommend if it you're looking for something new or are interested in the justice system or prisons, etc. but I think you need to be aware it's heavy.
A quote I wanted to remember from one of the women she interviewed about prison and family:
"You're supposed to be doing the time but they're doing the time with you. Prison wasn't hard because of the fighting... I could handle that. It was knowing how much my family suffered because of what I did."
August 5, 2021
4.5 stars, really. This is a monumental piece of reporting that shouldn't have surprised me the way it did. It's journalism the way it should be done - considered, painstaking. (Five years of interviews fueled this book.) Unlike so much "news" of today, it doesn't traffic in the ephemeral world of clicks and likes; it plays the long game of history and storytelling.
I took the cover at face value, expecting to learn, well, about female inmate firefighters in California. What surprised me - and eventually delighted me, after some consideration - was that the author approached this topic from all angles, not just a descriptive historical one. The author connects the dots among firefighting, climate change, California's prison system, racism, and American history, and also goes much more deeply into its individual characters' stories than I expected.
At first I was thrown by the journalism at length about the inmates' lives as free citizens; then I realized that was the whole point. These inmates are *people*, and the author wants us to remember that the next time we see a TV story, sadly ever-frequent now, about deadly California fires. These are the people at the front line, risking their lives for others who mostly don't know about them - until this book - let alone appreciate them.
I like how the author worked in George Floyd and COVID-19. Those threads are very much relevant to her subject matter, and it felt oddly fresh to see those topics covered in book form. They've been all over the web, sure, but they're not problems just of 2020.
Minus 0.5 stars for slight journalistic mistakes, which I would not expect from a writer of NYT caliber. Shaver Lake is hundreds of miles away from Antelope Valley, so I think she meant to reference another body of water. The resort casino is spelled Pechanga, not Pechango. These incidental errors don't affect my admiration of the book; I lay them at the feet of her fact-checking and editing team.
I went into this book with nothing but curiosity, i.e., a minimal level of interest. I left feeling like the author not only shined a light brilliantly on her subject matter, but also opened multiple doorways of learning for the reader. Anything that gets the synapses firing in unexpected ways gets my strong recommendation: go read this.
I took the cover at face value, expecting to learn, well, about female inmate firefighters in California. What surprised me - and eventually delighted me, after some consideration - was that the author approached this topic from all angles, not just a descriptive historical one. The author connects the dots among firefighting, climate change, California's prison system, racism, and American history, and also goes much more deeply into its individual characters' stories than I expected.
At first I was thrown by the journalism at length about the inmates' lives as free citizens; then I realized that was the whole point. These inmates are *people*, and the author wants us to remember that the next time we see a TV story, sadly ever-frequent now, about deadly California fires. These are the people at the front line, risking their lives for others who mostly don't know about them - until this book - let alone appreciate them.
I like how the author worked in George Floyd and COVID-19. Those threads are very much relevant to her subject matter, and it felt oddly fresh to see those topics covered in book form. They've been all over the web, sure, but they're not problems just of 2020.
Minus 0.5 stars for slight journalistic mistakes, which I would not expect from a writer of NYT caliber. Shaver Lake is hundreds of miles away from Antelope Valley, so I think she meant to reference another body of water. The resort casino is spelled Pechanga, not Pechango. These incidental errors don't affect my admiration of the book; I lay them at the feet of her fact-checking and editing team.
I went into this book with nothing but curiosity, i.e., a minimal level of interest. I left feeling like the author not only shined a light brilliantly on her subject matter, but also opened multiple doorways of learning for the reader. Anything that gets the synapses firing in unexpected ways gets my strong recommendation: go read this.
August 16, 2021
It's not quite what I expected of this title, since it details the crimes that got highlighted characters into the system, but I did enjoy learning about the firefighting program, since I didn't even know it existed let alone how it operates. One thing I learned was that with California’s fire season is year-round and roughly 30% of the on-the-ground wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. Approximately 200 of those firefighters are women serving on all-female crews with only a few weeks of training.
August 6, 2021
This book is told through the life stories of real women inmates (some of whom are mothers) fighting major wild fires in California now or in the very recent past. This case study approach is further enhanced in the audiobook version by interviews recorded in prison with some of these women (one of which is truly heartbreaking).
My admiration for the toughness and bravery of these women is enormous. Running into a fire means overcoming every instinct, experience and learned behaviour in your brain. Anyone who has done emergency responding or been in the military knows what it is like to force yourself into danger for the benefit of others. But as the women in this book point out to the author, though they are classed as volunteers it was either fight fires (‘go to camp’) or remain at the mercy of sadistic, sexually abusing prison guards in a women’s prison. For that reason they refuse to accept the ‘volunteer’ tag and instead regard going to camp as surviving. Ie they are incentivised for reasons of personal safety to go and fight wild fires! That is crazy and wrong. And once they are released from prison they continue to be punished for the rest of their lives because employers don’t want to know anyone with a criminal record (which creates the conditions for further offending).
Will anything be done about the serious issues highlighted in this book? I fear not. Justice and incarceration are big business in the US. Money wins while prisoners and the victims of their crimes continue to lose, big time.
My admiration for the toughness and bravery of these women is enormous. Running into a fire means overcoming every instinct, experience and learned behaviour in your brain. Anyone who has done emergency responding or been in the military knows what it is like to force yourself into danger for the benefit of others. But as the women in this book point out to the author, though they are classed as volunteers it was either fight fires (‘go to camp’) or remain at the mercy of sadistic, sexually abusing prison guards in a women’s prison. For that reason they refuse to accept the ‘volunteer’ tag and instead regard going to camp as surviving. Ie they are incentivised for reasons of personal safety to go and fight wild fires! That is crazy and wrong. And once they are released from prison they continue to be punished for the rest of their lives because employers don’t want to know anyone with a criminal record (which creates the conditions for further offending).
Will anything be done about the serious issues highlighted in this book? I fear not. Justice and incarceration are big business in the US. Money wins while prisoners and the victims of their crimes continue to lose, big time.
June 28, 2021
Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. This is a fascinating book about the incarcerated female firefighting crews from the California prison system. The author gets access to about ten of these women and gives the history of each: Childhood, the crimes they committed to end up in jail, their experiences fight fire and their varied lives after prison. She also gives us a history of just how much California has relied of prison labor for the formation of the state through the years to the present day and their fighting some of the world’s most sprawling and intensive fire.
Read
October 10, 2021This book is specifically about incarcerated female firefighters, but the issues and questions explored apply to all labor by inmates as well as some commentary on low-wage labor by non-incarcerated people. So, it’s not a feel good book. And then there’s the sub-story about the effects of climate change. Sigh. If you think life isn’t fair, this book will not disabuse you of that notion, but it’s a story that more people should be aware of.
Read
November 10, 202430% of California’s wild fire crews are made up of incarcerated people. They earn just a couple dollars an hour. In 2016, 22 year old Shawna Jones died fighting a CA wildfire with just two months left before she was going to be released from her short three year sentence. This book focuses on the female crews. Many of them report feeling valued and realizing their purpose/potential for the first time on these crews, but they have not been allowed to become fire-fighters upon release. Their training and experience has for the most part gone to waste once they're out.
Gavin Newsom passed legislative changes to try to address this issue. In 2020, California enacted Assembly Bill 2147, allowing certain formerly incarcerated individuals who participated in firefighting programs to have their records expunged (depending on your sentence/crimes committed), allowing them to pursue professional firefighting careers and other careers that require state licenses (EMTs). Programs like the Ventura Training Center (VTC) have been created to provide advanced firefighter training to formerly incarcerated individuals so they can compete for entry level firefighting positions with state, federal, and local agencies. Although, it's unclear how effective these programs/bills have been - out of 277 VTC participants since the program's creation, 111 have left before completion. The program would probably benefit from additional mental health/financial support services and other resources to support a more comprehensive reintegration and rehabilitative process, but at least it's a start.
In our most recent Nov 2024 election, Californians voted No on passing Prop 6, which would have amended California's constitution to bar slavery in any form and repeal a current provision allowing involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime. Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont have all passed state measures to ban involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime. We as Californians pride ourselves on being a progressive state, but we weren't able to pass this.
Prison labor is a multi-billion dollar industry. Many companies like Victoria's Secret have used prison labor for manufacturing their products like sewing lingerie/panties.
This book shines a light on how much of our systems rely on free labor and exploitation. The book is very informative, and although I agree with a lot of the author's POV, I fear she is overly idealistic and this will alienate certain readers from even digesting the straight facts presented.
I guess this says more about my current internal debate of how much to stay true to your values vs how much to compromise in the name of slow-but-sure progress. I don't know... it feels like both options are failing right now.
Gavin Newsom passed legislative changes to try to address this issue. In 2020, California enacted Assembly Bill 2147, allowing certain formerly incarcerated individuals who participated in firefighting programs to have their records expunged (depending on your sentence/crimes committed), allowing them to pursue professional firefighting careers and other careers that require state licenses (EMTs). Programs like the Ventura Training Center (VTC) have been created to provide advanced firefighter training to formerly incarcerated individuals so they can compete for entry level firefighting positions with state, federal, and local agencies. Although, it's unclear how effective these programs/bills have been - out of 277 VTC participants since the program's creation, 111 have left before completion. The program would probably benefit from additional mental health/financial support services and other resources to support a more comprehensive reintegration and rehabilitative process, but at least it's a start.
In our most recent Nov 2024 election, Californians voted No on passing Prop 6, which would have amended California's constitution to bar slavery in any form and repeal a current provision allowing involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime. Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont have all passed state measures to ban involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime. We as Californians pride ourselves on being a progressive state, but we weren't able to pass this.
Prison labor is a multi-billion dollar industry. Many companies like Victoria's Secret have used prison labor for manufacturing their products like sewing lingerie/panties.
This book shines a light on how much of our systems rely on free labor and exploitation. The book is very informative, and although I agree with a lot of the author's POV, I fear she is overly idealistic and this will alienate certain readers from even digesting the straight facts presented.
I guess this says more about my current internal debate of how much to stay true to your values vs how much to compromise in the name of slow-but-sure progress. I don't know... it feels like both options are failing right now.
February 17, 2025
3.5 / 5 🌟
First and foremost this book was very informative! I learned so so much I wouldn’t have about not only the fire programs for incarcerated persons, but the actual incarceration experience and recovery itself. It was amazing to see the spotlight put on these brave and strong women, but heartbreaking to see just how little the state takes care of them after putting their lives on the line. I think it’s a very important read for anyone who lives in California; reading about women who defended my own backyard for the past decade made me want to be more aware of how I can help incarcerated people during elections and my everyday life.
Unfortunately, the story is pretty choppy. I think the author tried to tackle way too many subjects and people at once—which I totally understand because I can see how hard it would be not to—but it ended up hurting the book more than helping it. I think restructuring the narrative could have helped a great deal.
Now, the next thing I’m going to see may seem a little out of touch and I want to say I recognize that this book is NOT about the people who are impacted by the fires. BUT!!! I don’t love how negatively biased the author is against certain communities and that was so extremely disappointing; not only did she fail to see that Malibu as not just some all rich community, she also failed to have basic empathy for fire victims. The author slighted Malibu as an all rich community with “bleach blondes pushing strollers in yoga attire” and uses the word “estates” being lost in the Woolsey fire that happened in Malibu, but uses “homes” for the fire that burned down Paradise in NorCal the same year. Idk that just kind of pissed me off but again I KNOW I KNOW it’s not about me or my community. I just wanted to say as a journalist generalizing a community like that kind of stinks??
First and foremost this book was very informative! I learned so so much I wouldn’t have about not only the fire programs for incarcerated persons, but the actual incarceration experience and recovery itself. It was amazing to see the spotlight put on these brave and strong women, but heartbreaking to see just how little the state takes care of them after putting their lives on the line. I think it’s a very important read for anyone who lives in California; reading about women who defended my own backyard for the past decade made me want to be more aware of how I can help incarcerated people during elections and my everyday life.
Unfortunately, the story is pretty choppy. I think the author tried to tackle way too many subjects and people at once—which I totally understand because I can see how hard it would be not to—but it ended up hurting the book more than helping it. I think restructuring the narrative could have helped a great deal.
Now, the next thing I’m going to see may seem a little out of touch and I want to say I recognize that this book is NOT about the people who are impacted by the fires. BUT!!! I don’t love how negatively biased the author is against certain communities and that was so extremely disappointing; not only did she fail to see that Malibu as not just some all rich community, she also failed to have basic empathy for fire victims. The author slighted Malibu as an all rich community with “bleach blondes pushing strollers in yoga attire” and uses the word “estates” being lost in the Woolsey fire that happened in Malibu, but uses “homes” for the fire that burned down Paradise in NorCal the same year. Idk that just kind of pissed me off but again I KNOW I KNOW it’s not about me or my community. I just wanted to say as a journalist generalizing a community like that kind of stinks??
July 19, 2022
I appreciated the candidness and journalistic tone of this account of female inmate firefighters who are consistently on the front lines of California’s wild fires. The dialogue was especially real and concrete; it felt like the author made an effort to preserve the integrity of the interviews. Some grammar errors but I forgave those in the face of an informed way to tell these stories and honor these lives, while presenting a view of the American prison system that is long overdue for reform. I’ll be recommending this book to others! It’s not a subject that gets talked about often enough in this day and age.
January 15, 2025
An informing inside look at inmates that fight fires. Some fires that I myself was fighting as well. I’ve worked with formers inmates who continue to outwork those around them and also motivate those around them. They deserve the gratitude that wildland firefighters and municipal firefighters get, too.
September 25, 2021
Incredibly informative and eye opening, especially for someone with very little knowledge of the prison system and CA wildfires.
December 25, 2021
3.5 stars
Content notes:
Content notes:
February 9, 2024
i wish there were pictures of the women profiled in this book! i felt like the author did a really good job telling their stories.
January 25, 2025
Extremely eye opening into the lives of inmate fire fighters in CA. As a new CA resident, this was an important read. But anyone interested in climate change would enjoy this one
August 10, 2022
Here are up close and personal stories of female inmates who chose to enter the California Conservation Camp Program, a firefighting program that put them on the frontlines of continuous, climate change caused fires in the state. Decide for yourself if this program is their salvation or a curse.
February 5, 2023
This was an interesting and engaging read. As someone who grew up and spent most of their life in California, I had no knowledge of inmate fire crews. It jumped around in a way that didn’t make too much sense to me, but maybe it was supposed to imitate the unpredictability of a wildfire?
July 11, 2022
Very good in some ways; very to VERY flawed in others. I’d do 3.5 if we had half stars. No more.
I had maybe heard a little bit about the female inmates who fight California wildfires, along with the much larger male contingent, before seeing this book, but if I had heard about them, it was very little.
“Breathing Fire” is an eye-opener.
The entry point is Shawna Lynn Jones, the first female inmate firefighter to die in the line of duty. From there, we meet her mom and learn her family history and what led her to felony incarceration. We meet several other inmates who worked on the same crew as her, as well as a few others.
From there, Jamie Love talks about the process to become a firefighter, and the desirability of doing so because of the amount of time it can whack off a person’s sentence, and the relatively easier prison conditions you get if accepted.
And, the state of California exploiting that with crumbs for pay.
This includes former California attorney general and now vice-president of the United States, Kamala Harris. During the 2020 Democratic primary process, more progressive Democrats gave her the Twitter hashtag #KamalaIsACop. Much of the ire was targeted at her lenient treatment of a bank connected to Steve Mnuchin.
But, she pops up here, too.
In 2014, California’s court system was dealing with a U.S. Supreme Court order to address state prison overcrowding. Part of the solution was to send more nonviolent felons to county jail. Her office protested against this, saying it would …
“Severely impact fire camp participation, a dangerous outcome while California is in the middle of a difficult fire season.”
Kamala is a cop indeed.
More critical reviewers of the book who note the chapter on the history of the California penal system distracts from the general flow of the book do have a point. I sort of grokked through that. Rather than work it into the rest of the book, Love should have just pitched it.
The material on Molly Williams stuck out like a sore thumb. Williams lived 200 years ago, was in New York, was not a prison inmate, and was, as far as we know, a free Black woman and not a slave when she was helping fight fires. Zero relevance to the main story.
Another reviewer mentions her loose handle on some other facts. This reviewer said she conflated Chino and Chino Hills, among other things. True, as Chino Hills State Park is in the city of Chino Hills, which she never mentions. And, Chino itself was incorporated more than a century ago. I note that she also claims Lancaster borders Joshua Tree National Park. These mistakes are more egregious coming from a self-professed native Californian.
So, well short of five stars. But, some low star reviewers specifically said they didn’t want to read a “liberal” take on the California penal system. So, I didn’t want to rate it less than four. But, I couldn’t rate it four. The Williams material gave these people too much ammo. Per a few other insightful critics, if we had half-stars, I’d maybe do 3.5.
And, while this is not a book where I say, “ I recommend you don’t read this author again,” if I do see another Love book, it will get a highly skeptical grok before I take it home from the library.
I had maybe heard a little bit about the female inmates who fight California wildfires, along with the much larger male contingent, before seeing this book, but if I had heard about them, it was very little.
“Breathing Fire” is an eye-opener.
The entry point is Shawna Lynn Jones, the first female inmate firefighter to die in the line of duty. From there, we meet her mom and learn her family history and what led her to felony incarceration. We meet several other inmates who worked on the same crew as her, as well as a few others.
From there, Jamie Love talks about the process to become a firefighter, and the desirability of doing so because of the amount of time it can whack off a person’s sentence, and the relatively easier prison conditions you get if accepted.
And, the state of California exploiting that with crumbs for pay.
This includes former California attorney general and now vice-president of the United States, Kamala Harris. During the 2020 Democratic primary process, more progressive Democrats gave her the Twitter hashtag #KamalaIsACop. Much of the ire was targeted at her lenient treatment of a bank connected to Steve Mnuchin.
But, she pops up here, too.
In 2014, California’s court system was dealing with a U.S. Supreme Court order to address state prison overcrowding. Part of the solution was to send more nonviolent felons to county jail. Her office protested against this, saying it would …
“Severely impact fire camp participation, a dangerous outcome while California is in the middle of a difficult fire season.”
Kamala is a cop indeed.
More critical reviewers of the book who note the chapter on the history of the California penal system distracts from the general flow of the book do have a point. I sort of grokked through that. Rather than work it into the rest of the book, Love should have just pitched it.
The material on Molly Williams stuck out like a sore thumb. Williams lived 200 years ago, was in New York, was not a prison inmate, and was, as far as we know, a free Black woman and not a slave when she was helping fight fires. Zero relevance to the main story.
Another reviewer mentions her loose handle on some other facts. This reviewer said she conflated Chino and Chino Hills, among other things. True, as Chino Hills State Park is in the city of Chino Hills, which she never mentions. And, Chino itself was incorporated more than a century ago. I note that she also claims Lancaster borders Joshua Tree National Park. These mistakes are more egregious coming from a self-professed native Californian.
So, well short of five stars. But, some low star reviewers specifically said they didn’t want to read a “liberal” take on the California penal system. So, I didn’t want to rate it less than four. But, I couldn’t rate it four. The Williams material gave these people too much ammo. Per a few other insightful critics, if we had half-stars, I’d maybe do 3.5.
And, while this is not a book where I say, “ I recommend you don’t read this author again,” if I do see another Love book, it will get a highly skeptical grok before I take it home from the library.
November 10, 2021
If you are concerned about prison reform and particularly the use of prison labor, then this book needs to be on your shelves. I grew up in California in a prison town. My little brother played Little League on a field that was part of CDCR property and was kept and maintained by incarcerated people. This book gave me new eyes into the conundrum of profiting from prison labor and the failure of the system to adequately provide rehabilitation for people once their sentence is over.
November 14, 2021
Normally, I don't like books about prison -- I did time in New York and I write about prisons for a living, so it just feels too much like work and too much like reliving my past. But this was so good I couldn't stop reading. Jaime did such a good job of melding together the narratives of the women at the center of the book with meaty background on all the most broken parts of the criminal justice system, and how they got that way.
August 20, 2021
(3.5 stars)
Breathing Fire is an interesting book, particularly for someone living outside of America, with little idea of the details of their prison system. Set mostly in California, an area beset by worsening fire storms due to climate change, Jaime Lowe's book is focused on female inmates who get "paid the prison salaries of $2.56 a day and up to $2 an hour when they were out on the line, fighting fire." If you knew nothing about these crews of incarcerated women fighting fires, you were not alone. What's even more impressive is these are the crews who work "on the ground, executing grunt work, the first line of defense cutting circles to try to contain flames and stop the forward progress of a fire," – in other words, risking their lives. Marching into an out-of-control fire is a situation where "the impulse is to run" which must overlay with the background desire to escape incarceration, and be very hard to overcome.
"One of the reasons women apply for fire came is not because they want to fight fire. It's because they want their family to see them in a nice place. A respectable place. A place that doesn't require inmate searches before and after a visit." While taking on this underpaid life threatening labour is a choice for inmates, it comes with a range of privileges that make the choice feel coerced. "Camp is the way to go. You get better visits. Better food. Everything is better in camp," has to be balanced with the idea that "'volunteer' is a relative term for the incarcerated."
Despite this, across the stories of the inmates contained in this book, you can definitely see the benefit that being an inmate firefighter has for the women: "So, for people to actually look at me like, as if I'm accomplishing things, which I am, that's a big deal." It was almost enough to make you feel good about fire camp as a personal and career development opportunity to break the cycle of incarceration for the women by giving "inmates skills to take their lives in new directions", well until you read about how America sucker punches these inmates by their recorded felonies making them ineligible to be firefighters when they complete their sentences. Luckily a bill has passed in 2020 to make this situation less exasperating.
In terms of the writing, Breathing Fire is an easy-to-read book. However it felt like Chapter 10—a history lesson of the Californian penal system—was disruptive to the flow of this book, and should have been integrated into the women's stories and experiences better.
With thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, MCD for sending me a copy to read.
Breathing Fire is an interesting book, particularly for someone living outside of America, with little idea of the details of their prison system. Set mostly in California, an area beset by worsening fire storms due to climate change, Jaime Lowe's book is focused on female inmates who get "paid the prison salaries of $2.56 a day and up to $2 an hour when they were out on the line, fighting fire." If you knew nothing about these crews of incarcerated women fighting fires, you were not alone. What's even more impressive is these are the crews who work "on the ground, executing grunt work, the first line of defense cutting circles to try to contain flames and stop the forward progress of a fire," – in other words, risking their lives. Marching into an out-of-control fire is a situation where "the impulse is to run" which must overlay with the background desire to escape incarceration, and be very hard to overcome.
"One of the reasons women apply for fire came is not because they want to fight fire. It's because they want their family to see them in a nice place. A respectable place. A place that doesn't require inmate searches before and after a visit." While taking on this underpaid life threatening labour is a choice for inmates, it comes with a range of privileges that make the choice feel coerced. "Camp is the way to go. You get better visits. Better food. Everything is better in camp," has to be balanced with the idea that "'volunteer' is a relative term for the incarcerated."
Despite this, across the stories of the inmates contained in this book, you can definitely see the benefit that being an inmate firefighter has for the women: "So, for people to actually look at me like, as if I'm accomplishing things, which I am, that's a big deal." It was almost enough to make you feel good about fire camp as a personal and career development opportunity to break the cycle of incarceration for the women by giving "inmates skills to take their lives in new directions", well until you read about how America sucker punches these inmates by their recorded felonies making them ineligible to be firefighters when they complete their sentences. Luckily a bill has passed in 2020 to make this situation less exasperating.
In terms of the writing, Breathing Fire is an easy-to-read book. However it felt like Chapter 10—a history lesson of the Californian penal system—was disruptive to the flow of this book, and should have been integrated into the women's stories and experiences better.
With thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, MCD for sending me a copy to read.
February 26, 2022
If you enjoyed episode 1 of Netflix's Fire Chasers, you will find this book fascinating. Lowe looks at the female inmates training and working as fire crews during California's ever-extending fire season. She examines the pros --the fitness, schedule, relative freedom, better food, the skills learned, and meaningful work--and the cons--low pay and danger. She interviewed several women during their time in camp and then after their release.
This book is fascinating, in that this program is (at least pre-Covid) vital to California's firefighting strategy. Lowe looks at the history of the program, and the women's program in particular. She looks at what inamtes have to do to even qualify for training. She does a good job describing the hills above Malibu--the terrain, the density of brush, the poison oak.
This book is also full of sloppy fact-checking, which always makes me question what else is wrong that I am missing. MacArthur Park is not in South LA. Chino is a city that incorporated 112 years ago (not an unincorporated town). Chino Hills and Chino are two different places. What she describes as "mixed-conifer forest" is...not. In her overview of PG&E and Edison being found guilty for fires, she also does not mention the California Public Utilities Commission's role in their management. PG&E may be private, but they are unable to raise rates or do much of anything without CA PUC approval. The California laws are crazy--if a 50-foot tree on private property falls over and sparks a fire when it hits power lines 30 feet away, the power company is considered liable even though they are not permitted to clear 30 feet on both sides of their lines and have no control over that private property.
Only in the epilogue does she discuss the new law (from 2020) that, in theory, permits prisoner firefighters to be hired as CalFire/city firefighters. In the past only the feds would hire felons. I would have liked to read more about this and if it is working, but she does discuss how with Covid camps have been shut down, methods changed, and additional non-incarcerated firefighters hired.
There is a short list of sources (all published), but there are exactly zero citations within the book. She does not list any info on her own interviews (I understand using aliases to protect people from harassment of any kind, but...dates/places/alias? anything?) in her source list. There are no footnotes, endnotes, chapter notes.
3 stars? I liked this and think I learned things (unless they are wrong?), but it feels like "breaking news" from a newspaper, not a well-researched and complete nonfiction book.
This book is fascinating, in that this program is (at least pre-Covid) vital to California's firefighting strategy. Lowe looks at the history of the program, and the women's program in particular. She looks at what inamtes have to do to even qualify for training. She does a good job describing the hills above Malibu--the terrain, the density of brush, the poison oak.
This book is also full of sloppy fact-checking, which always makes me question what else is wrong that I am missing. MacArthur Park is not in South LA. Chino is a city that incorporated 112 years ago (not an unincorporated town). Chino Hills and Chino are two different places. What she describes as "mixed-conifer forest" is...not. In her overview of PG&E and Edison being found guilty for fires, she also does not mention the California Public Utilities Commission's role in their management. PG&E may be private, but they are unable to raise rates or do much of anything without CA PUC approval. The California laws are crazy--if a 50-foot tree on private property falls over and sparks a fire when it hits power lines 30 feet away, the power company is considered liable even though they are not permitted to clear 30 feet on both sides of their lines and have no control over that private property.
Only in the epilogue does she discuss the new law (from 2020) that, in theory, permits prisoner firefighters to be hired as CalFire/city firefighters. In the past only the feds would hire felons. I would have liked to read more about this and if it is working, but she does discuss how with Covid camps have been shut down, methods changed, and additional non-incarcerated firefighters hired.
There is a short list of sources (all published), but there are exactly zero citations within the book. She does not list any info on her own interviews (I understand using aliases to protect people from harassment of any kind, but...dates/places/alias? anything?) in her source list. There are no footnotes, endnotes, chapter notes.
3 stars? I liked this and think I learned things (unless they are wrong?), but it feels like "breaking news" from a newspaper, not a well-researched and complete nonfiction book.
August 9, 2021
I really wanted to read this and had a couple of Audible credits...so I used one to get the book rather than buying it on Kindle or get the physical book since I'm trying to decrease the amount of stuff I have. The story is interesting, but they have the author and another woman listed as readers. One of them is doing most of the reading, I guess, but she either really changes her voice for a sentence or two (or even just a few words) for no apparent reason or the other woman reads those lines. It's not to act like she's talking as someone else to emphasize that person's words...at one point she was just describing what one of the women was wearing. It's jarring and totally unnecessary. It's almost like they recorded it before the author finished the physical book then went back and dubbed in parts that she added on a final edit or something...then the narrator forgot what voice she used, couldn't do that voice again for some reason, or they couldn't get her and used someone else. Glad I used a credit and didn't actually buy it.
Okay, I finished the book...there are a couple of other issues besides all the weird voice changes that continued throughout the book. At one point the author wrote about the first ever woman firefighter from NY, Molly Williams...
She's talking about having a scarf wound around her head. The narrator pronounced it like a wound on the body! WTH?! And the narrator is an American actress (which makes the bizarre voice cuts all the weirder), so it's not a matter of how someone from another country might pronounce a word differently. Then in the epilogue, the narrator says, "On Friday, September 11th, 2022, Governor Newsom..." Really?! 2022?!?! I have no idea if it's written that way in the physical book, but that is a glaring mistake since it's currently 2021! The one reason it's nice to have the Audible version is you get to hear snippets of the interviews with the actual women at the end.
The narration issues aside, this is a really good book that highlights more changes are needed in the criminal justice and prison systems, including preparing inmates for release. Paying the inmates so little for doing such a dangerous job is insulting to say the least. And to train them and for many give them a career they want to continue once released then give them little to no opportunity to compete for those jobs is just ridiculous. As one person said, if we can give them all these tools that could be potential weapons and send them out to work, maybe they shouldn't have been in prison in the first place. It's interesting that when the first women's prison was establish, it had a female board and the focus was on training the women for careers once they were out. As soon as it was transferred under the control of the men's board, that disappeared. Of course with private for-profit prisons, rehabilitation and training will never happen. Things have to change in this country.
Okay, I finished the book...there are a couple of other issues besides all the weird voice changes that continued throughout the book. At one point the author wrote about the first ever woman firefighter from NY, Molly Williams...
She's talking about having a scarf wound around her head. The narrator pronounced it like a wound on the body! WTH?! And the narrator is an American actress (which makes the bizarre voice cuts all the weirder), so it's not a matter of how someone from another country might pronounce a word differently. Then in the epilogue, the narrator says, "On Friday, September 11th, 2022, Governor Newsom..." Really?! 2022?!?! I have no idea if it's written that way in the physical book, but that is a glaring mistake since it's currently 2021! The one reason it's nice to have the Audible version is you get to hear snippets of the interviews with the actual women at the end.
The narration issues aside, this is a really good book that highlights more changes are needed in the criminal justice and prison systems, including preparing inmates for release. Paying the inmates so little for doing such a dangerous job is insulting to say the least. And to train them and for many give them a career they want to continue once released then give them little to no opportunity to compete for those jobs is just ridiculous. As one person said, if we can give them all these tools that could be potential weapons and send them out to work, maybe they shouldn't have been in prison in the first place. It's interesting that when the first women's prison was establish, it had a female board and the focus was on training the women for careers once they were out. As soon as it was transferred under the control of the men's board, that disappeared. Of course with private for-profit prisons, rehabilitation and training will never happen. Things have to change in this country.
October 18, 2021
This is the kind of book that takes an interesting topic and makes the much-less-interesting person the story. This issue has been covered better in short TV summaries. DNF at about 100 pages.
The author chooses words to stress that the system is unfair, but most of the situations did not warrant that much sympathy. A girl sticks a knife to someone and steals his bicycle, but, how unfair that he claims his bike cost $950, just enough to qualify as a felony. Another girl is the lookout during a robbery and ends up charged along with the robbers. Right, that’s how co-conspiracy work. A mom stays with her violent husband for years. She “did not abuse her children. But, because she didn’t remove her children from a dangerous situation, she was held responsible.” Well, yes, that’s how it works. The author says the neighbor called the police when he heard the sound of spanking, as though this was a typical parent spanking a child (completely legal in California and not a situation in which cops would force the door down, charge parents with torture and Assault with a Deadly, and get the mom sentenced to eight years.
There should have been far more information about the inmate firefighter program itself. It’s possible that the bulk of the history shows up later, but my assumption is the focus on the girls continues to the end. As does the opinion journalism.
The dialogue between the girls is cringeworthy. I don’t know why the author thought it was important to replicate their fart jokes or Shawna's repetitive, “Is this a for reals fire?” There was no need for Jason’s rant about Columbus and his incessant “you know what I mean?” This might come off okay in a documentary film, but in print it’s really tedious.
The author take the inmates at their word and shares all of it as fact (including ridiculously publishing the prison Yelp reviews!). So the narrative is dominated by run-of-the-mill criminal backstories that are not particularly credible.
After spending two weeks slogging through a third of the book, I decided to move on to something else.
The author chooses words to stress that the system is unfair, but most of the situations did not warrant that much sympathy. A girl sticks a knife to someone and steals his bicycle, but, how unfair that he claims his bike cost $950, just enough to qualify as a felony. Another girl is the lookout during a robbery and ends up charged along with the robbers. Right, that’s how co-conspiracy work. A mom stays with her violent husband for years. She “did not abuse her children. But, because she didn’t remove her children from a dangerous situation, she was held responsible.” Well, yes, that’s how it works. The author says the neighbor called the police when he heard the sound of spanking, as though this was a typical parent spanking a child (completely legal in California and not a situation in which cops would force the door down, charge parents with torture and Assault with a Deadly, and get the mom sentenced to eight years.
There should have been far more information about the inmate firefighter program itself. It’s possible that the bulk of the history shows up later, but my assumption is the focus on the girls continues to the end. As does the opinion journalism.
The dialogue between the girls is cringeworthy. I don’t know why the author thought it was important to replicate their fart jokes or Shawna's repetitive, “Is this a for reals fire?” There was no need for Jason’s rant about Columbus and his incessant “you know what I mean?” This might come off okay in a documentary film, but in print it’s really tedious.
The author take the inmates at their word and shares all of it as fact (including ridiculously publishing the prison Yelp reviews!). So the narrative is dominated by run-of-the-mill criminal backstories that are not particularly credible.
After spending two weeks slogging through a third of the book, I decided to move on to something else.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews