Baez crawled onto the gurney next to her daughter, but she remained unresponsive. When they work, California’s inmates typically earn between 8 cents and 95 cents an hour. This institutional disinterest makes more sense when inmate firefighters, who are on-call continuously, are considered as a state resource. She has a death grip on a plastic baton and holds a leash tethered to the neck of a stuffed Goofy doll. Ten more women piled out after her, at a spot on the border of Agoura Hills and Malibu, in Southern California. Ornelas could tell that Jones was struggling with the weight of her chain saw as they hiked up the slope. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine and her work has appeared in New York magazine, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Maxim, Gawker, The Village Voice, LA Weekly, and on ESPN.com. Shawna Lynn Jones, who died working on a fire with Malibu 13-3 in February 2016. This setup was so cost-effective that by 1959 Gov. Find the best way to get in touch with Jaime by joining Muck Rack. 13; and one at Puerta la Cruz, just east of Temecula, called Conservation Camp No. It was just after 3 a.m. on Feb. 25, 2016, when Malibu 13-3, the 12-woman crew Jones belonged to, arrived at the Mulholland fire, ahead of any aerial support or local fire trucks. Mulholland was Jones’s first fire as second saw; she was promoted the previous week. A member of Marble Collegiate Church. Articles by Jaime Lowe on Muck Rack. Find Jaime Lowe of The New York Times's articles, email address, contact information, Twitter and more By choice, for less than $2 an hour, the female inmate firefighters of California work their bodies to the breaking point. The first photo her mom, Diana Baez, showed me was of a cocky young girl of around 5 or 6 dressed up for career day. When you’re under that drug, you really just go with the flow. (33 minutes) Jones admitted to the court that she failed to comply with her probation conditions, and she was sentenced to three years. Jaime Lowe begins CPT. Baez, immediately hysterical, asked, ‘‘Where is my daughter?’’ He paused and said, ‘‘I can’t tell you because she’s an inmate.’’ An hour later, when the Lancaster sheriff’s office called with numbers and instructions, Baez scrawled as much information as she could on her bedroom mirror using eyeliner. The Incarcerated Women Who Fight California’s Wildfires. Earl Warren’s Prisoner Rehabilitation Act, the state opened Camp Rainbow which — under the joint supervision of the state’s Division of Forestry and the California Department of Corrections (later renamed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation by Gov. ‘‘Any fire you go on statewide, whether it be small or large, the inmate hand crews make up anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of the total fire personnel,’’ says Lt. Keith Radey, the commander who is in charge of a camp where women train. Harlan Ellison Isn’t Dead Yet The cult author, 57 years into his writing career. They see visitors because C.D.C.R. ": flores/pro-trump-protesters-attack-black-woman?fbclid=IwAR0njxBkVPQEQvyEKWrzDILEX7A6dwIiWPrHlar4RWtPs8nT3xqD3lMN9Mc. They built roads, harvested crops and repaired infrastructure. Jaime Lowe. Marquet Jones, a chain-saw operator with Rainbow Camp. And they get paid for it, though not much. It began in Los Angeles in 1993, when Jaime Lowe was just sixteen. transport. In May, one man was crushed by a falling tree in Humboldt County; in July, another firefighter died within a week after accidentally cutting his leg and femoral artery on a chain saw. She was 22. But the benefits of greater freedom and superior food also come with a physical cost. ‘‘She always wanted to be a K-9 handler, and here she was dressed like one,’’ Baez said. LOWE--James, 75, of New York City, passed away August 13. Those standards have not been widely embraced, however. Lowe takes us into their lives, into the prisons and the women’s decisions to join the controversial program, into the fire camps where they live and train, and onto the front lines, where … She heard about the forestry program during one of the 238 days she spent in the county jail: The women all spoke of it as a prison Shangri-La — lobster, shrimp, ocean breezes. Or at the very least, by creating a pathway to employment? June 28, 2015 There are three ways to get to Malibu 13 — from the Pacific Coast Highway, from the circuitous back roads northeast of Malibu or by way of C.D.C.R. Despite her fear and strained nerves, she cut the containment line for 10 hours, almost until dawn. Jaime Lowe is a writer living in Brooklyn. In the fall of 2014, as the state’s courts were taking up the issue of overcrowded prisons, the office of California’s attorney general argued against shrinking the number of inmates. Rain caused more grass to grow in places it ordinarily wouldn’t, and when summer temperatures regularly top 100 degrees, that grass dries out and becomes kindling. "I did the first scalping of the new civil war. One speaker brought up Jones and asked, to great applause, that her life and her death not go in vain. On June 2, 2015, she wrote on her Facebook page: ‘‘I can only handle so much bad stuff at one time. —, NYT Mag, author of BREATHING FIRE, out summer 2021; Female inmate firefighters of Malibu Camp at the Detwiler fire in Mariposa County in July. He told Jones he would bail her out if she took responsibility for the drugs. Jaime Lowe begins CPT. California’s inmate firefighters choose to take part in the grinding and dangerous work they do. She had violated parole at least three times — stealing puppy food, stealing groceries, selling marijuana, missing court dates — before a warrant was issued for her arrest. She was trapped in Lancaster. They could see flames in the vicinity of Mulholland Highway, from a fire that had been burning for about an hour. Jaime Lowe. ‘‘You learn how to work with them, you know — ’cause, really all you have is each other when you’re on a fire.’’, Some inmates say they would work the fireline for free — for the experience, the training, the gratification of doing something useful. Survived by partner Sal Alberti, nieces Willa Hilliard and Robinette Batten. Rosa Garcia got the dollar taco guy to bring his truck to the parking lot. Born and raised in California, she lives in New York City. If they did their job right, a fire might be contained. author of MENTAL; also ODB historian. Then, the first chain saw shouted, ‘‘Rock.’’ But Jones couldn’t hear over the noise of her machine. Jones decided to turn herself in. Jaime Lowe is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and the author of the biography Digging for Dirt: The Life and Death of ODB. Malibu is kissed with salt air and shade; Rainbow and Port are hiking paradises. At Malibu 13, one of three conservation camps that house women, the commander, John Scott, showed me a printout: Inmate firefighters can make a maximum of $2.56 a day in camp and $1 an hour when they’re fighting fires. hospital, she should ask for ‘‘Hawaii X.’’ She arrived to find her daughter lying unconscious on a gurney. ‘‘And I’m starting to go Friday, too. ‘‘It was very steep,’’ Tyquesha Brown, a member of the crew who was there, told me. They operated in hookline formation, moving in order of rank, which was determined by task and ability. Firefighters from Crew 13-4 of Camp Malibu on a lunch break at Nicholas Canyon Beach after completing a training exercise on Sept. 30, 2016. Join Facebook to connect with Jaime Lowe and others you may know. It was taking a long time for the civilian crews to get the hoses up the ravine. all tried to explain. It reminded her of a not-too-distant past. A fire company crew was on every overpass, standing on their trucks, saluting in full uniform as Jones’s body was driven underneath. Through the window.’’ Now, her young boys — Bernard and Unique, both under 10 — live with her older sister. She had found something in this sort of work, something she liked. 4 maintaining the line on a small fire near Hemet. Brooklyn Metro New York. jaimeroselowe - at - gmail. After five years, that drought is over, thanks to a much-needed rainy season earlier this year that produced the rare ‘‘super bloom’’ — vast, thick patches of orange, magenta and purple blossoms among the lime-green grasses. Great articles, every Saturday. The job ended when the relationship did. By 1923, California’s road crews, made up of inmates who worked on highway construction, were receiving wages, albeit low wages, for their labor. side of camp there is another memorial — five tree stumps and a rain stick with a carved message: ‘‘Like the wind, felt but not seen, my sweet Shawna may you R.I.P.’’, At a graduation last year of inmate firefighters at the California Institution for Women, near Chino, where all female inmate firefighters are trained, the mood was celebratory, almost exultant. Lowe is the author of Digging for Dirt: The Life and Death of ODB, a biography of Ol' Dirty Bastard, a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan. ‘‘You feel like you can’t breathe, but you’re breathing. He told Baez that when she got to the U.C.L.A. says that the firefighter program is intended to serve as rehabilitation for the inmates. They make office furniture for state employees, state license plates, prison uniforms, anything that any state institution might use. and I have reached my quota for the year so it can stop now. ‘‘I could always count on Shawna being right there, right in front of me, center stage, every single time,’’ Jae Paige Dion, the lead singer of SIIC, said. But by 7:30 a.m., a little more than a third of the fire was considered contained. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world... Jump to. Jones didn’t grow up with dreams of being a firefighter. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine and her work has appeared in New York magazine, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Maxim, Gawker, The Village Voice, LA Weekly, and on ESPN.com. Jones’s body was driven from the coroner’s department to Eternal Valley Memorial Park and Mortuary, located between Lancaster and Los Angeles. ‘‘We basically ordered one million tacos so that she would remember what real food tastes like,’’ Garcia said. Jaime Lowe is a writer for the New York Times Magazine and the author of Mental, a memoir about bipolar disorder. + S.J.,’’ on the side of a rusted beach picnic table. She sold merchandise at her friends’ shows; hustled pool; bummed cigarettes; wrote poetry; smoked weed; and skateboarded, sometimes all night. And when they look at the communal board on the L.A. County Fire side of the camp, they see a dedicated plaque and several articles about Jones’s death. Find Jaime Lowe's email address, contact information, LinkedIn, Twitter, other social media and more. Get our Newsletter. ‘‘It feels good,’’ Marquet said, ‘‘when you see kids with signs saying, ‘Thank you for saving my house, thank you for saving my dog.’ It feels good that you saved somebody’s home, you know? Can’t no one stop you — you’re just the king or the queen of the world. Jaime Lowe New York Times Magazine Jun 2015 Permalink. The night of the Mulholland fire, Jones was frustrated, according to Jessica Ornelas. ‘‘This is what I get for wishing for live flames,’’ Jones said to Ornelas on the truck ride. Rainbow Crew No. Lowe is the author of Digging… More about Jaime Lowe Get news about Nonfiction books, authors, and more ‘‘I always up-talk the program,’’ an inmate named Amber Sapp told me. ‘‘Your feet are hot and tired, and they have a pulse of their own,’’ Marquet said. In 1852, its prisoners slept on deck at night and spent their days building San Quentin, the state’s first permanent prison. Jaime was sexually assaulted thirty years ago, when she was thirteen, and she’s rarely articulated the details out loud—until now. is proud of the program. The Malibu community raised $4,000 for the ‘‘Shawna Lynn Jones Fund.’’ On the C.D.C.R. She etched her initials with her boyfriend’s, ‘‘C.C. Jones and her crew wore helmets and yellow Nomex fire-retardant suits; yellow handkerchiefs covered their mouths and necks. Someone told her, she says, that in Shawna’s four months as a firefighter, she made about $1,000. When new trainees arrive in a white bus, they see no fences. ‘‘I was pushing her, she was sliding down,’’ Ornelas says. But wages in the forestry program, while still wildly low by outside standards, are significantly better than the rest. The calluses on her hands came from working the saw — it was an extension of her body. They are less violent and offer more space. Later, she found out from the intake administrator what had happened on the ravine in Malibu. ‘‘No one can get out of here, it’s like we’re all stuck,’’ Rosa Garcia, Jones’s friend, said. By 10 the next morning, Jones was dead. Her face was swollen; her eyes were taped shut so that they wouldn’t dry out; her head had been shaved because the doctors were trying to drain a blood clot. ‘‘There are some days we are worn down to the core,’’ she said. Arnold Schwarzenegger) — housed inmates to clear fire lines. But Baez could only cry and hold her daughter’s hand. ‘‘Some of these girls leave very interested in what they got exposed to and say, ‘Oh I never knew this exists, how do I keep on doing this?’ And it’s hard when they get out there because they do have a lot of the same walls that they were facing before. She recalled her first fire last year, going into Napa Valley as residents were evacuating. ‘‘She just called me two days before, and she said, ‘Momma, I’m coming home in six weeks,’ so I freaking told her, ‘You promised me.’ ’’ Baez hardly recognized her daughter. She was also one of California’s 250 or so female-inmate firefighters. Craig Lee for The New York Times This recipe is an adaptation of one found in Jamie Oliver's book, “Jamie’s Italy.” It's a healthier version than the traditional Italian-American juggernaut; it omits breading and frying the eggplant, and instead calls for roasting the eggplant until golden brown. ‘‘There’s been an accident,’’ a man told her when she answered. The town was burned over; cars were blackened. ‘‘I can say, coming from the streets, when you’re with your fire crew, that’s your family,’’ Edwards said. 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