Igniting Change: Building to a Diverse Firefighting Force
*This episode is part of our Skilled Labor Series hosted by MCJ partner, Yin Lu. This series is focused on amplifying the voices of folks from the skilled labor workforce, including electricians, farmers, ranchers, HVAC installers, and others who are on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure.
Brandon Smith is a wildland firefighter and the co-founder and CEO of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program. Brandon graduated with a Bachelor's from UC Berkeley in Interdisciplinary Studies and Black Studies. After graduation, he worked in education and eventually found his way to wildland firefighting. We previously talked with a hotshot firefighter named James Sedlak to understand the day-to-day details of the job itself. In this episode, Yin and Brandon's discussion focuses on building the firefighting talent pipeline, bringing more awareness to this field of work, and getting more people into it.
Get connected:
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*You can also reach us via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded on February 3, 2023.
In this episode, we cover:
Brandon's background and experience at "fire camp" while incarcerated
Founding the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program (FFRP)
The recruitment process
The challenges FFRP faces
Fire prevention vs. suppression and indigenous burning practices
Recertification after incarceration
History of incarcerated people in firefighting
The skilled labor shortage
How folks can support FFRP
Cross-functional partnerships and breaking down silos
The role of case managers at FFRP
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Jason Jacobs:
Hello everyone, this is Jason Jacobs.
Cody Simms:
And I'm Cody Simms.
Jason Jacobs:
And welcome to My Climate Journey. This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms:
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and all the ways people like you and I can help.
Jason Jacobs:
We appreciate you tuning in, sharing this episode, and if you feel like it, leaving us a review to help more people find out about us so they can figure out where they fit in addressing the problem of climate change.
Yin Lu:
Hi, everyone. Yin here, partner at MCJ Collective. I work alongside Cody and Jason and host this series on the podcast called The Skilled Labor Workforce, where we interviewed the wonderful men and women on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure for the climate future.
Today, we're excited to host Brandon Smith. Brandon is a husband, father, wildland firefighter, and the co-founder and director of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program. Brandon graduated with a Bachelor's from UC Berkeley in Interdisciplinary Studies and Black Studies. After graduation, he worked in the education field and eventually found his way to doing wildland firefighting. We previously talked with a hotshot firefighter named James Sedlock to understand the day-to-day details of the job itself. And today's discussion is going to be focused on building the firefighting talent pipeline, how to bring more awareness to this field of work and how to get more people into it. So without further ado, Brandon, welcome to the show.
Brandon Smith:
Thank you, Yin. Really appreciate this invitation to being here in the show.
Yin Lu:
In understanding what I know about your background, you went to Berkeley, you graduated, became a teacher, and then you were incarcerated. Can you maybe tell us a story from that point on how you found your way to doing firefighting?
Brandon Smith:
Yeah, so I did attend and graduate from the University of California.
Yin Lu:
You have to say that because you're a Berkeley grad. I'm a UCLA grad, so the University of California, the first.
Brandon Smith:
The first. And so basically what happened was it was the spring of 2006, right before my graduation, I was incarcerated for possession of intent to sell marijuana. I had one pound of marijuana, even though the legal limit is three pounds today, and that just started my cycle of being incarcerated. Once folks hop into being incarcerated and/or being in the carceral system, it tends to have a repetitive notice to it. And so it was what it was.
I remember being an incarcerated. I was at Wasco State Prison when a counselor asked me if I wanted to go to fire camp. At first, I had said, "No, I don't want to be a firefighter. I don't do physical work like that. I want to read books and write essays and all that kind of stuff." I ended up deciding to go say yes, and I loved the work that we were doing. I'm from Los Angeles, I'm from Altadena, California, which is where the Rose Parade is, and so the mountains are in my backyard and I found a sense of purpose being in nature. I had always, especially coming from Cal, feeling some kind of way. People saying there like, I'm a felon, I'm an incarcerated person, I'm a convict, and this line of work provided me a way to continually give back to the community.
And so I grew to love it. I grew to love it so much that when it was time for me to come home, I had asked the fire chiefs, I had asked the correctional officers like, "How do I go out here and go be a firefighter once I come home? Is there any way I can do this professionally?" None of us knew a pathway and that's where my journey started for FFRP and my work.
Yin Lu:
You and I share the fact that we grew up in the same neighborhood in LA. I was in the neighboring city and just being so close to the mountains, you really do feel a connection to them. I'm curious if you can talk more about the fire camp experience. How long did you do that for and what is the cadence for going out and doing firefighting in a 12-month period? What does that look like?
Brandon Smith:
Yeah. Great question, Yin. I was incarcerated for two years at Bautista Conservation Camp, which is in Hemet, California. A little off the 10 freeway for the folks that know where we coming from. How it worked is Monday through Friday, 9:00 to 5:00, I had a day job, and my day job while incarcerated was I was working to go cut down trees in the forest. I was working to go remove vegetation from the side of the road on freeways. I was part of a construction crew, whereas I helped to go create a golf course and baseball fields for underprivileged folks. I've worked in a water treatment facility when it rains and it pours. I'm out here filling out sandbags. So I got a Monday through Friday job. As soon as a fire happens, they call and we need to go respond.
I remember going to my first fire, I remember hearing on the radio, "This is San Bernardino to crew one, helicopter one, I need you all to go respond to this fire." And I'm like, "Oh, wow!" Because I'm on Crew two. Then I'm like, "Lord God, please, please don't let them call me." Then 30 minutes later, "Crew two, helicopter two, engine two, go response to the fire." I remember going to my first fire. And in going to this first fire, I remember sitting there like praying to God, "Please keep me safe. I don't want a tree to fall on me. I don't want to get burned up." I remember as a child, I had watched Backdraft and I was scared of fires. So I liked the work that I was doing, but I didn't want to go on a fire. When we got out on that fire, it was like The Avengers. You have helicopters in the air, you have airplanes, you have folks in fire engines, you have folks on fire crews. You just have multiple ways to go attack this challenge.
And so adrenaline hit. We worked for 24 hours, and as I was coming home, I see all these people saying like, "Thank you, firefighters. Thank you, firefighters. Thank you, firefighters." And I'm like, "Oh, that's cool. They're thanking all of them." And then my captain tells me like, "They're actually thanking you." We came to find out that we saved a town of 10,000 people in Idyllwild, California. Now we saved their homes and that they can go to school the next day. And so they were actually thanking me. It didn't pop into their mind that I was currently incarcerated or the fact that I could be a public servant and go help out with the needs that California had at that moment. That's where I decided I wanted to go do this to move forward.
Coming from Los Angeles County, being what they call "a city person," not to glorify this because I'm not glorifying it and/or though I had access to the forest and to nature, which I had never been in. I had an ability to go help out the community. I wasn't considered a "felon" or a "convict" or all that kind of stuff. I was a first responder that went to go help folks out, and that's where I decided to go move forward to go be a firefighter professionally.
Yin Lu:
That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that journey and that arc of first thinking like "this is not for me," and then experiencing and experience the, it sounds like a lot of teamwork and camaraderie while fighting the fires and then afterwards feeling that sense of gratitude from those around you and wanting to continue to do this and continue to protect the nature that's around us. That's such a beautiful journey that you shared. And so let's fast-forward, you come out of being incarcerated and then you start this program called FFRP. Tell us more about it.
Brandon Smith:
Yeah, so the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program is a nonprofit organization that helps marginalized communities wherever they come from, whether they are justice impacted people, whether they're folks from urban communities, whether they are job seekers. Our goal is to help folks transition into gainful, family winning careers within the wildfire and forestry sectors. And so we have six-month paid training programs where we certify folks and or re-certify folks and give them actual field experience via fire prevention projects to go train and be skilled workers, laborers in the sector. And so our program operates from November to April. This year, we're graduating 50 people. We have three program sites, one is in Pasadena, California, one is in San Bernardino, California, and one is in West Oakland, California. Our whole goal is to go put them through this training program so that they can go become skilled workers in this space, in a world where the federal government select the United States Forest Service, where the state, Cal Fire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire, all of them have shortages of firefighters and skilled labor in this space.
FFRP sits here to go train you and give you the field experience so that you can go transition into this work and we're moving forward. What we've seen is when you can provide somebody with gainful employment that makes family winning wages, that you can give back to the community and your past transgressions don't have to define who you are moving forward, we've had successes. So we have multiple folks that work with Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, private contractors, and our whole goal is just to make sure that we help folks get family winning careers. And we've been doing that since 2018. We're graduating our new court of 50 people April 15th and April 22nd.
Yin Lu:
I'm curious, how many people have you helped with a gainful employment that are now working in forest management?
Brandon Smith:
So we've helped over 170 people transition into gainful employment, and they come from various communities. They're not all justice impacted, but also urban communities, women, folks from the LGBTIQ+ communities. The majority of folks that do this work are white men from non-urban areas. And so FFRP has helped over 170 people from the opposite of that to go transition and go move forward.
Yin Lu:
How do you recruit people for FFRP's programs? Where do you find these folks?
Brandon Smith:
One main point is the State of California still has 35 fire camps. Fire camps are like a hybrid prison/fire station, and so there's 35 of them out there. So we go to all 35 fire camps and training centers and go recruit and go say, "Hey, you can go do this work." I remember when I came home after asking the correctional officer and the chiefs how to go do this work, and they said, "I don't know." But now we know a pathway for folks to go move forward. So we go speak to them and say, "If you're interested, there's a way for you to go move forward." We go to different high schools, youth facilities, community centers, and we going to say, "Hey, if you're not a person that's talking about college or you already have a career, this opportunity may be here for you."
There is an extreme need for people to go work in this space. And so we just try to go share the knowledge and go say, "Hey, you can go do this work, and it's actually possible. And in doing this work, it can transform your life. It will positively benefit whatever community you work in, and it will have exponential benefits for everybody else in your lives."
One of the biggest things that we talk about within FFRP is that being from Altadena, California, I had never met a firefighter in my whole life, even though I knew wildfires existed. So now when I go to church and I'm in my uniform or they know what I do, people are pulling me to the side like, "Hey, how can you help my daughter, my cousin, my grandchild, my peoples out to go do this work?" And so I think one of the biggest things that we do is spread awareness that you can go do this work.
Yin Lu:
Yeah, I love the phrase, "You can't be what you can't see." Growing up, when I think about a firefighter, it's a white man, 20s to 30s, you think about just the stereotypical person you imagine being a firefighter. And so if you don't look like that, it's oftentimes hard to imagine yourself being in that role. So I'm glad you're creating this path and this community, more importantly, of people who are marginalized to say can do this. Trust me, there's a need out there. Cal Fire, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forestry Service can't hire fast enough as we've heard from other people that are in the industry.
Brandon Smith:
One of the biggest things, Yin. So I tell my wife all the time, I'm like, "Oh, let's go on a hike. Let's go do a run because you can go out here and work in the field with me." She's like, "No, I can't do it." And then I show her videos of women doing the work and I'm like, "Come on." One of the biggest things that we at FFRP do too is we want more women into this space because I don't know why, but I guess because of the physical aspect of it, but every time I go on a hike or a run, I got a woman beat me up the hill or beat me on the run, and women can go do this work. People from urban communities can go do this work. It's just that we don't know that we can go do this, and that's what we try to go push. Like, you can.
Yin Lu:
I'm curious to learn about any challenges that you've seen in building FFRP over the years in any part of your business expansion.
Brandon Smith:
Yeah. So FFRP, we started off as one office in Pasadena, California, and now we've expanded to three offices, one in Pasadena, San Bernardino, and West Oakland, California. A couple of challenges that I've seen, one of the challenges that FFRP sees is that they don't have access to the community of firefighters currently and/or once you hop into community, like how to apply for these jobs, how to apply for these careers, what does that look like, firefighters as white men in their 20s, in their 20s to 50s in non-urban areas, it's like a very tight-knit community. So how do you break into those communities?
Yin Lu:
After going through the program?
Brandon Smith:
Right. So that's one of the things that FFRP does. One of the things that we instituted in a year or two was making sure that we take people to fire stations and fire departments and like, "Hey, here are these folks." Because as a firefighter, I need to be able to go trust my brother or sister and vice versa. And so there's that.
Another challenge is that people often forget that challenges that people have in their former lives do not necessarily dictate how people can go move forward in their future lives. For example, one of my team members is sad to say, and I won't mention his name, one of my team members was in prison for three years and he was in prison for three years because he went to a Domino's and he stole a pizza because he was hungry in foster care when he was 18. Now, this brother is a pastor. He's one of the most strongest people I've ever known in life. You know what I'm saying? He and I were driving in a car and we saw a traffic collision, a car accident, and we pulled over and go help. When we go see litter on the ground, we go pick it up. We go push folks to go live their best lives with integrity, and he's the person that I know with so much integrity and/or just strictly because of his situation, everybody thinks of him as not worthy of this work, though he is.
And so one of our challenges is just changing the narrative. Another one of our challenges that FFRP focuses on is when you talk about wildfires, knowing that they've been increasing in their frequency and severity over the last 100 years, there are two pieces to, well, there are multiple pieces, but the two main pieces that firefighters deal with is called prevention and suppression. Prevention is making sure that we manage the forest beforehand. Suppression is the conversation around let's put the fire out when it happens so that it doesn't grow big and Big Bear California just doesn't go on fire. The majority of firefighting has been focused on suppression. So when a fire happens, let's put the fire out and/or what FFRP and what we go do is while we're training these people, we actually go out to the forest and do fire prevention projects. Let's reduce the frequency and severity of wildfires, right?
And so FFRP tries to take a proactive role in this by increasing the amount of skilled labor in this work, by doing fire prevention work, going into the forest, cutting down trees, removing vegetation. By going out and seeing, well, post fire, where is all this carbon at and how do we move or remove that or make sure things don't get crazy? And so that coupled with, in addition to that training actual firefighters and having our own fire department, all of that coming together to create a very holistic approach to our wildfire challenge.
One of the reasons why wildfires have increased in their past 100 years is because we have retracted from Native/indigenous practices, like controlled burns. How do we replant the natural vegetation, plants, trees, brush that's out there in these spaces? And so FFRP's approach is that we don't always have to sit and wait for a fire to happen, we can go work proactively to go reduce fires before they happen, and then if and when they do happen, we have a skilled labor force of folks that can go do this work.
Yin Lu:
We're going to take a quick break so you can hear me talk more about the MCJ membership option.
Hey, folks. Yin here, a partner at MCJ Collective. Want to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ membership community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning, and doing that goes beyond just listening to the podcast. We started in 2019 and have since then grown to 2,000 members globally. Each week, we're inspired by people who join with differing backgrounds and perspectives, and while those perspectives are different, what we all share in common is a deep curiosity to learn and bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change. Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community, a number of founding teams have met, nonprofits have been established, a bunch of hiring has been done, many early stage investments have been made, as well as ongoing events and programming like monthly Women in Climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, climate book club, art workshops and more.
So whether you've been in climate for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to mcjcollective.com and click on the members tab at the top. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show.
All right. Let's get back to the show.
Brandon Smith:
Justice impacted people deserve an opportunity for family winning careers and employment that can transform their lives while supporting their families and their communities. That's the work that we do at FFRP. We provide folks with paid training opportunities. We provide folks with the certifications and in the field experience that the State of California formally invalidated from us. Because keep in mind, while I was incarcerated, I received the training and I had the on-the-job experience, and/or once I came home, none of that was valid. So we re-certify and train folks to go do this work.
Yin Lu:
Why is that the case? Doing the rationale behind why someone who had the valid numbers of experience working while incarcerated just gets that taken away from them?
Brandon Smith:
Yeah. Well, I don't know the exact details. The State of California has utilized incarcerated people to be firefighters since 1941, since World War II, and at its height, there were 9,000 incarcerated people working as firefighters and/or support staff a year, and the State of California decided that the certifications that they received and the experience that they received were not valid. Times are changing a little bit in that capacity. Folks are more aware of this situation. When I came home in 2014, most folks didn't know that they utilized incarcerated people as firefighters. So I would say like, "I was a firefighter." They're like, "How are you a firefighter? You was locked up." I'm like, "Well, I was fighting fire. I was on the fire. I was the one who... I had a chainsaw in my hand, or I had a hose in my hand and I was putting out the fire."
Folks weren't aware of that that situation is slowly changing, and I appreciate the State of California for increasing awareness of that situation. In either 2017 or 2018, it was very interesting because the United States of America decided to do an assessment on why wildfires were continually getting worse in the Western United States, and they came up with a couple of reasons why. One of the reasons why is that the Western United States is continually getting hotter and it's getting drier. California is barely touching on out of a drought right now because of recent precipitation. Another conversation was the mismanagement of California's forest. For example, I went to John Muir High School. Our mascot was a mustang, and there was a story that they always told me about, and I remember reading about this, about how John Muir rode through California's forest in his Mustang, and he can just go anywhere he wanted without any trails or anything. That's not possible today.
I don't know if anybody's been to California's forest, but California's forests are extremely overgrown. There's a mismanagement. There used to be a conversation where you can go look and see a mile future in the forest. Now, you can barely see 10 feet in the forest because the forests are just mismanaged. That's because we're not cutting down and thinning trees and vegetation how we're supposed to go do. Also, because fires are a natural way of life. I remember as a child, I watched this movie cartoon called FernGully, and it was like fire was evil, but fire burned everything up and/or fire is a natural way of this ecosystem. And so if we keep putting out fires before they can go do what they're supposed to do, everything is going to continually grow.
In addition to that, there's a lack of skilled labor to go do this work. The federal government, all the way down to local municipalities, all of them report a shortage of qualified people to go hire. The Forest Service said that they were short 2,500 firefighters. Cal Fire said they were short, I think 1,500 firefighters, local municipalities say 200-300 people here and there in each of their agencies. So there's a lack of skilled labor, so much so that when fires happen within California, we call people from Oregon, the State of Washington, Arizona, Nevada, the country of Mexico, Australia. We even have folks from Israel, Canada just because there's not enough skilled labor in this work. That's what creates this whole conundrum out here.
And so where FFRP comes from is because you have a shortage of skilled labor in this work, you decided to utilize currently incarcerated people, train them the same way everybody else is trained, give them the experience, let them do the work just like everybody else, yet when they come home, they're not able to do that work when you're short for people to go do this work. And that's where F F R P comes in. If I was qualified enough to go do this work while I was incarcerated, I should be qualified to go do this work once I'm home, period. You know what I'm saying? So that's one of the conundrums that FFRP tries to attack is that we can't sit with the last 100 years of traditional fire prevention work. We need to go create some new ways and figure out what this looks like. Indigenous people in California, were doing this work for hundreds, thousands of years without having challenges like the challenges we have.
Yin Lu:
Yeah, so I think you're just hitting on such a important point, which is wildfires aren't stopping anytime soon, California has been in a drought, will continue to be in a drought as is true with many parts of the world, and there is a labor shortage. So how do we fill that labor shortage gap and there are also best practices that were used on the land for hundreds of years before industrialization, how can we bring some of those back and how can we bring more equity both on the people side and also for the land back to the way things were?
Brandon Smith:
Yeah. Yin, I think you have a great point. I would just say one is we need to reconnect with indigenous communities because they had a practice and a plan that worked. In addition to that, we need to expand our recruitment and hiring processes to include non-traditional folks into this career.
Yin Lu:
I also think there's a role in addition to really understanding and maybe resurrecting indigenous practices really beefing up the talent pipeline. I think there's also a role for new technology to play in how we do fire mitigation and prevention and suppression a whole of a lot better at a larger scale. Because yeah, I think fire season, as we learned from our previous conversation, used to be defined as May through November and is now kind of just all year long depending on where you are.
Brandon Smith:
All year long.
Yin Lu:
All year long.
Brandon Smith:
Right.
Yin Lu:
Yeah. As we wrap up, Brandon, I have one more question, which is how can we, listeners of the podcast help you and FFRP and your journey?
Brandon Smith:
Well, thank you for that, Yin. I think there's a couple of ways. I mean, there's the traditional get down of supporting FFRP, forestryfirerp.org, being able to support there.
Yin Lu:
We should also mentioned that FFRP is a nonprofit.
Brandon Smith:
Yes, we are a nonprofit organization. In addition to that, if there are any thought partners, land stewards, folks that have innovative ways, we're always open to conversation because one of the things that we want to do is figure out non-traditional strategies to go create success. And so if somebody has an idea or a thought process, we would love and appreciate that as well. If anybody in the community or anybody listening to this has family members or people who are interested in this career, they can hit us up as well. FFRP, we don't do this work in a silo. We love to build community and work with partners all over the place. And so any ways that you all are interested in helping, we are here.
Yin Lu:
What's an example of a partner that you've worked with?
Brandon Smith:
For example, I've worked with what's called a Fire Safe Council. And a Fire Safe Council is an example of a homeowner's association specifically around fires. So it's like a HOA that says, "Oh, I don't want my house to be burned." "All right, so let's partner together because we can figure out a way to help treat your house and your homes while also training our participants." We have someone right now from UC Berkeley from Cal, who is a student in forestry, and they're trying to figure out ways on how to identify specific trees that burn more than others, and what does that look like and how do we track all of our impact and what does that look like. If there's somebody in technology that says, for example, I've heard this before, even though I thought it was interesting at first, but a lot of people are talking about it, and I've heard the conversation about, for example, if somebody is in mechanics and has drones and how do drones fit in this whole conversation? If somebody wants to talk about the water table and what that looks like, FFRP has all of that.
One of the biggest things that FFRP is trying to do as well is we realize that this work does not happen solely as a firefighter. So there are forestry technicians, you can be in silviculture. We've had the help of wildland biologists, folks that work out in the wilderness. There are so many different aspects to this whole conversation that's just not about a fire and a firefighter. And so we seek to learn and partner with different career pathways, one, so that how can we train folks into these situations? Also though, how do we work together to build new solutions to these things? We have a great partnership with UC Berkeley right now at the Russell Research Station, and our whole goal is how do we take a place that's been ignored for 10, 15 years and turn it into an ecological space where people can enjoy and also is not a fire harm?
So, how do we create trails? How do we limb trees and take down trees and replant new trees and all that? We are fully available in this whole wildfire forestry sector. So anybody who want to get down or who has some support or thought processes, let us know.
My last thing is this training program, this conversation that we haven't spoke on is we have case managers that help out with making sure folks have housing and making sure folks have driver's licenses. We have folks that help out to make sure that they're good with their parole officers and/or they get off probation or parole. We have folks that make sure that people have insurance. How do they get boots and gear? For example, we did a spike out, which is camping out at one of our locations, and somebody had donated tents and zero-degree sleeping bags to us, and that was helpful. FFRP is open to build together with community. If you got an idea, I and we at FFRP are open to it. So thank you, Yin.
Yin Lu:
Amazing. I just love how much richness you're bringing and newness you're bringing to an ecosystem that needs to grow and expand. And there's a lot of creativity I think that you're bringing both on the human side, the talent side, the technology side, the R&D. It sounds like FFRP is kind of this interesting breeding ground for a lot of new and necessary change to happen in the fire arena. So thank you, Brandon, for the work that you do, and thank you for taking time out of your very, very busy day to chat with us.
Brandon Smith:
Yeah. Thank you, Yin. I really appreciate you and all the folks on your team to invite me to this podcast.
Jason Jacobs:
Thanks again for joining us on the My Climate Journey podcast.
Cody Simms:
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem solving capacity. To do this, we focus on three main pillars, content like this podcast and our weekly newsletter, capital to fund companies that are working to address climate change and our member community to bring people together, as Yin described earlier.
Jason Jacobs:
If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us at www.mcjcollective.com. And if you have guest suggestions, feel free to let us know on Twitter, @mcjpod.
Cody Simms:
Thanks and see you next episode.
