The Troubling Slavery-Era Origins of Inmate Firefighting

Fires continue to rage in Los Angeles, and already they have ranked among the most destructive urban blazes in American history. So far, they have killed at least 29 people, destroyed 17,000 structures, and caused, by one count, in excess of $250 billion in damages and loss. Strong winds and a sustained lack of water intensified by climate change led the fires to spread rapidly beyond hopes of containment.

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The federal, state, and local governments have turned to a diverse pool of manpower to fight the infernos. Some are local volunteer or state-funded professional firefighters, while others have come from all over the U.S. and even from other countries. The governments have also increasingly relied upon two polar opposite groups: well-compensated private fire crews, and prison inmates who are paid between $5.00 and $10.00 per day. California has deployed inmates to fight fires since 1915, and this year over 1,000 firefighters are inmates.

The public has become increasingly aware of inmate fire crews as California wildfires become a regular feature of the news cycle, even spawning the fictional CBS series Fire Country. Critics of the inmate firefighting program have long maintained that it is coercive — a form of servitude that is reminiscent of slavery. The parallel between inmate firefighting and slavery is more connected than critics likely realize. Inmate firefighting can trace its legacy to the practice of enslaved firefighting. The history of enslaved firefighters offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of relying on involuntary labor to fight blazes. 

In the 18th century, cities generally had small populations, and relatively few buildings, which were spread out, and rarely tended to top two stories. This landscape meant that a bucket brigade manned by residents passing water from wells to fires was generally enough to contain and stop most blazes. 

During the 19th century, however, firefighting underwent a major transformation. As urban boosters and capitalists increasingly invested in industrialization, cities expanded and concentrated flammable commodities together in previously unprecedented ways.

Read More: Why Incarcerated Firefighters Are Battling the L.A. Wildfires

This meant more — and more devastating — fires. In one New York fire, for example, whale oil caught fire resulting in 30 deaths and the destruction of over 345 buildings. 

Urban elites responded by starting to personally fund permanent volunteer firefighting corps, which they urged governments to institutionalize in the hopes of gaining government financing. 

Volunteer fire companies reflected many of the ideological impulses of the American Revolution. They largely resembled the sort of democratic institutions that the famous French observer Alexis de Tocqueville remarked upon as being the hallmark of the new U.S. Firefighters were exclusively men, but they came from all classes. Protecting neighbors’ property was one way in which American men demonstrated their fitness for citizenship. The elites paying for these companies saw funding them as one component of their broader responsibility to their communities; they often also helped provide limited social services like libraries and accident and fire insurance as well. 

In the North, under pressure from a burgeoning insurance industry, governments moved to fireproof their cities. In 1818, for example, Boston banned wooden structures. They also professionalized their firefighting corps after incidents like the Ursuline Convent riot of 1834 when Boston firefighters actively participated in the burning of a Catholic nunnery. Finally, they used new technologies like the telegraph and the steam fire engine (colloquially known as “steamers”) to improve firefighting.

The South took a similar but divergent path towards firefighting — one guided by its practice of slavery. 

Southern cities also had white volunteer corps, but Black labor was integral to their fire management strategy. Enslaved children cleaned chimneys, one of the most common sources of fires, under the direction of a white chimney inspector. They also had standing Black volunteer crews composed mostly of free Black firefighters, but also some enslaved members. These crews had white presidents until after the Civil War. 

Additionally, when fires broke out, white fire officers had the power to impress free and enslaved Black men into service (as in the North, women were excluded from firefighting). They forced Black workers to do the most dangerous parts of the job — and the ones that required the most brute force. 

Black workers impressed into service, both free and enslaved, did receive compensation, but how much varied from place-to-place and person-to-person. In 1854, for example, Charleston’s Washington Fire Company recorded paying unfree Black firefighters between $5.00 and $37.75 in a month. Free Black volunteer firefighters could also be exempted from poll taxes.

In some cases, fighting fires could provide a pathway to freedom for enslaved people. In the 1810s and 1820s, Richmond repeatedly celebrated the enslaved Gilbert Hunt for heroically saving people and buildings from fires. Even so, it took 18 years after Hunt first received plaudits until he could use his wages to purchase his freedom. Further, his firefighting wages were so paltry that he had to pool wages from other odd jobs together to afford his freedom. 

Because of their supply of unfree labor to fight fires, Southern leaders felt little need to fireproof their cities, or adopt the innovations in firefighting made possible by new technologies. While cities like Augusta, Ga., did ban wooden structures, officials in Charleston defeated a proposed 1838 ban — even after fire destroyed the city that year. As late as 1861, the city’s fire chief advocated against adoption of a steam pump because it was cheaper to continue using enslaved firefighters to pump the water.

Rejecting such cutting-edge technology, however, meant that Northern insurance companies wouldn’t write policies in the South. This refusal forced Southern newspapers to advertise charity drives for fire victims and Southerners to attempt to found their own fire insurance companies. Southerners took Northern refusal to extend them insurance as proof of anti-Southern discrimination, helping to bolster a sectional identity.

Read More: How Authorities Define Fire ‘Containment’ and ‘Control’

The Civil War and the end of slavery brought about the end to this Southern approach to fighting fires. Yet, crucially, the years of using enslaved men to fight fires had set the precedent for putting those thought to be inferior on the front lines in this fight. It cemented an association between Black and other non-white male bodies and forced firefighting that would later inform decisions to use inmates for this task.

This was legal because the 13th Amendment, which banned slavery, continued to allow involuntary servitude when it was “punishment for a crime…” Southerners quickly adopted the practice of forced prisoner labor as a way of restoring coerced labor in a supposedly free labor market. Southern whites imprisoned a disproportionately Black convict population, often for minor and outright fictional crimes, and put them to work, especially in building the highways that brought the South into the modern age.

But prison labor wasn’t exclusive to the South: California had used it since 1850, and in 1915, the state began using inmates to fight fires. The program greatly expanded after World War II. Advocates championed the rehabilitative potential for inmates exposed to the outdoors. Inmates have remained a staple of California firefighting ever since.

These roots help connect inmate firefighting in 2025 with enslaved firefighting in the antebellum South. Enslaved fire crews did some of the most grueling work like hand-pumping water, while today inmate crews likewise dig fire breaks by hand. Today, inmate fire crews are likewise four times as likely to be injured fighting fires as non-inmate crews, speaking to the increased danger of their jobs — like those of enslaved firefighters. Elites justify giving them the most dangerous work in part because there are potential benefits accruing to those doing the jobs: inmate firefighters generally get time off of their sentences, just as some enslaved firefighters could buy their own freedom.

While there are differences between the two, the history of enslaved firefighters offers a cautionary tale for California and other states that use inmate firefighters. Antebellum Charleston long felt that it did not need to change the way that it fought fires because its leaders could call on their perceived greatest asset: enslaved labor. Yet, their failure to modernize their firefighting techniques proved devastating in 1861 when a fire destroyed a third of the city. California threatens to make the same mistake if the access to inmate firefighters prevents policymakers from focusing on the structural challenges caused by environmental factors and climate change that are producing more — and more destructive — fires. 

Justin Hawkins is a Ph.D. Candidate in history at Indiana University and assistant editor of the Indiana Magazine of History. His research focuses on arson as part of enslaved resistance and labor struggles in 19th century America.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

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