Kim Kardashian is advocating for higher wages for the hundreds of incarcerated firefighters currently battling multiple wildfires that have flared up around Los Angeles.
In a lengthy multipost statement on her Instagram Story, the reality TV star and advocate for criminal justice reform thanked those risking their lives to battle the blazes while pushing California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to change laws that cap pay for incarcerated firefighters.
“I have spent the last week watching my city burning,” Kardashian’s posts began. “And have seen and spoken to many firefighters who are up all night long using every ounce of their strength to save our community.”
Among those on the front lines are the more than 900 incarcerated people getting paid sub-minimum wage while facing deadly conditions to save people and property across Southern California.
According to the California education news outlet EdSource, that number includes 29 youth who are part of a disaster relief training program first piloted by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in 2023.
Shedding light on the dire situation, Kardashian continued, “On all 5 fires in Los Angeles, there are hundreds of incarcerated firefighters, risking their lives to save us.”
“They are on the Palisades fire and Eaton fire in Pasadena working 24 hour shifts,” she wrote. “They get paid almost nothing, risk their lives, some have died, to prove to the community that they have changed and are now first responders. I see them as heroes.”
Pay for incarcerated firefighters is capped at $10.24 per day, according to California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Though Cal Fire supplements those wages by $1 an hour during emergencies, those at the bottom of the pay scale can earn less than $27 for a 24-hour shift.
In her post, Kardashian urged Newsom to “do what no Governor has done in 4 decades, and raise the incarcerated firefighter pay to a rate” that “honors a human being risking their life to save our lives and homes.”
Historically, as much as 30% of California’s firefighting forces came from the incarcerated population. According to a June 2024 report from the Los Angeles Times, those numbers have dipped post-pandemic.
California is one of at least a dozen states to deploy incarcerated people to fight fires when there are not enough professionals to contend with the emergencies.
Though the jobs can yield higher wages than other prison work and come with the possibility of reduced sentences, California is allowed to pay so little through a state provision that permits forced labor as a punishment for crime.
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Voters had a chance to remove the so-called slavery exemption from California’s constitution last November, but the ballot initiative was rejected.