California’s raging wildfires have created a crisis at multiple state prisons, where there are reports of heavy smoke and ash making it hard to breathe, unanswered pleas for evacuation, and concerns that the fire response could lead to further Covid-19 spread.
A massive fire in the Vacaville area, north of San Francisco, has rapidly spread within miles of two state prisons this week, including one that imprisons terminally ill people in hospice care and the elderly and medically vulnerable.
Despite mass evacuation orders in surrounding areas authorities have resisted calls to evacuate the two adjacent prisons – California Medical Facility (CMF) and Solano state prison. In Los Angeles, a separate fire has grown near the Lancaster state prison, which has also suffered a significant Covid outbreak.
“They are breathing in fire and smoke, and they have nowhere to run,” said Sophia Murillo, 39, whose brother is incarcerated at CMF in Vacaville. “Everyone has evacuated but they were left there in prison. Are they going to wait until the last minute to get them out?”
To increase social distancing and limit the spread of Covid, CMF had moved 80 people to sleep in outdoor tents instead of indoor cells, but with the fire approaching and air pollution rising, the prison moved them back indoors. Murillo said she now fears a major Covid outbreak inside the prison, and noted that mass evacuations could also spread the virus if people are packed in buses together.
“I’m furious at the incompetence and severe inhumanity of this,” said Kate Chatfield, policy director with the Justice Collaborative, a group that fights mass incarceration. “Covid is allowed to rage through the prison system and kill people, and then they have tent hospitals set up … and now with wildfires, they take down the tents and put these people back in the Covid-infected building?”
Aaron Francis, a spokesman for the California department of corrections and rehabilitation (CDCR), told the Guardian late Thursday that officials were monitoring the Vacaville fires but that the two prisons were “not in immediate danger” and had no current orders to evacuate. The prisons were initially located within the direct evacuation zone on Wednesday, but were later removed. The Solano county sheriff’s office, which issues evacuation orders, did not respond to an inquiry.
California depends on incarcerated laborers to fight wildfires and Covid lockdowns inside prisons forced a dozen of the firefighting crews to shut down earlier this summer, adding to the chaos. More than 1,300 incarcerated firefighters were currently responding to the blazes, Francis said.
‘Disaster on top of a disaster’
In June, CDCR did trainings and prescribed burns around the Vacaville prisons to prepare for fire season, Francis said, adding that officials had provided N95 masks to prisoners and staff.
Families and advocates, however, said they had little confidence in CDCR to handle the fires, especially in the wake of major Covid missteps. During the pandemic, the virus spread across the system as CDCR moved prisoners between facilities, and more than 9,700 people were infected, with 55 total killed so far. Meanwhile, incarcerated people have been cut off from their families since March and have described living in inhumane and unsafe conditions, suffering through indefinite quarantines and lockdowns.
The wildfires have only worsened this public health and human rights catastrophe, family members said, noting that their loved ones were experiencing exacerbated anxiety and health problems behind bars.
“It’s disaster on top of disaster on top of disaster,” said Kirsten Roehler, whose 78-year-old father, Fred Roehler, is imprisoned in Lancaster, where more than 140 people have contracted Covid during the pandemic. Her father, who suffers from lung disease, asthma and heart problems, is at high risk of death if he contracts Covid, and is now trying to shield himself from further respiratory problems from the nearby Lake fire, which ignited a week ago and was only 48% contained on Thursday: “He tried to shut off the air flow to his cell so he wasn’t inhaling the smoke.”
In one recent letter, Fred said he saw “huge ugly black smoke rising” outside his window and that he blocked his vent and put on a mask to try to protect himself.
Kirsten, who is in the Santa Cruz area where another major fire is threatening the region and causing horrific pollution, said it was unclear to her if CDCR even had a proper evacuation plan in place. “The state is responsible for these people. They have to take care of them, that is their job.”
Francis, the CDCR spokesman, said the Lancaster prison was “encouraging inmates to refrain from excessive or strenuous outdoor physical activity”, adding they were “given the opportunity to return to their housing unit at any time if they feel they are being negatively impacted by the air quality”. Medically vulnerable people are “required to stay indoors” and “high-risk inmates” are being monitored, he said.
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, has released thousands of people early to alleviate overcrowding in prisons (which has also contributed to the prisoner firefighter shortages.) But public health experts have argued that the only way to prevent Covid outbreaks is to cut the population by at least half, releasing 50,000 or more people. Advocates have also called for the state to release elderly and medically vulnerable people en masse, and the fires, they said, have dramatically increased the urgency.
Baleegh Brown, a 31-year-old who is immunocompromised and incarcerated at Lancaster, learned in July that he would be released due to Covid, but more than a month later, he is still waiting, according to his sister Najmah Brown: “His life is at risk and now we have these fires … We are having nightmares and anxiety. It’s very frightening when you feel powerless.” (A CDCR spokesman said Friday there were not currently plans to expedite Brown’s release.)
The state has had months to prepare for these overlapping crises and should have released more people sooner, said Adnan Khan, executive director of Re:Store Justice, who was previously incarcerated in the Solano prison. ““It shouldn’t come down to Covid or the fires for us to start releasing people,” he said. “These Band-Aids aren’t going to work. What disaster are we waiting for? Mass incarceration is the disaster.”