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Matthew Beck, 26,
who had been serving a six-year sentence for burglary and was
due to be paroled in October, was leading a crew in clearing
brush to contain a fire in the Hoopa Valley area of Del Norte
County on Wednesday. He was struck by a tall, uprooted tree and
suffered fatal head, neck and back injuries, officials said.
He died before he could be evacuated from the remote area, the
state corrections department said.
Beck was one of roughly 3,900 specially trained prison inmates,
all volunteers and all non-violent offenders, who form the
backbone of California's wildfire protection force.
Housed in 43 minimum-security "conservation camps" run by the
corrections department up and down the state, the firefighting
inmates also clear brush, maintain parks and work on flood
control projects.
The corrections department said Beck was the fourth inmate
firefighter killed in the line of duty since the unique and
little-known prison labor program began in the 1940s.
A female inmate firefighter was struck and killed by a loose
boulder last year in Malibu, and another inmate suffered a fatal
heart attack in 2007, according to corrections spokesman Bill
Sessa.
Twelve inmate firefighters nearly died in 2014 when they were
forced to outrun a wall of advancing flames in the Sierras.
Many inmates earn two days off of their sentences for each day
in camp. They also earn $1.45 a day in camp, plus $1 an hour for
time on the fire line.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Bill Trott)
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