A Prison in the Hills?

Malibu residents are fighting a plan to use the local fire station as temporary refuge to the prison inmate firefighters.

The previous camp, Camp 16, was burned down by the largest brush fire in Los Angeles County history, in the Angeles National forest. The camp was atop Mt. Gleason and two county firefighters were killed while defending the blaze.

Malibu residents aren’t happy at all about the proposed new site.

The TV actor Joshua Malina, lives a quarter-mile from the Malibu fire station, the proposed temporary camp site, contacted the elected representatives along with the neighbors, when he received an anonymous letter with the title “No Prison in Our Neighborhood.” He also told the L.A times that they must be informed as to what was going on, because if otherwise, people would only think about the worst happening. The residents of the area are organizing a campaign to defeat any plans of correction facilities in the neighborhood.

County Supervisor Zev Yarolavsky assured residents that the plans were only at the early stages, and L.A. County Fire Chief, Michael Freeman is yet to recommend the same. Yarolavsky said that if the camp does not have community support, other alternatives would be explored.

Freeman has already had his agency look for a dozen possible locations that could accommodate the inmates of Camp 16, which is one of the five camps of Los Angeles County, operated by county fire and state corrections officials. The other four are in Acton, Saugus, San Gabriel Mountains and Decker Canyon, Malibu.

The inmates of the Camp 16 are nonviolent offenders who are serving time for offenses including burglary, welfare fraud, and identity theft and so on. Those who are chosen for the fire duty are usually the ones who exhibit ideal behavior while serving the sentence.

Freeman said that this is far from a done deal, although the fire station could get the much needed increase in the number of crews as Malibu is considered the highest-risk fire areas. The north-south-running canyons funnel Santa Ana winds through the mountains towards the Pacific Ocean consuming hundreds of homes and thousands of acres on its way.

November 1993, October 1982 and October 1978 has seen disastrous fires killing people and burning about 100 to 200 homes. In September 1970 10 people were killed and 403 homes were burnt, when several blazes combined to form a single wall of 20 miles long, stretching from Newhall to Malibu.