Breathing Fire

A groundbreaking investigation into the women fighting California's catastrophic wildfires while imprisoned.
"Shawna was overcome by the claustrophobia, the heat, the smoke, the fire, all just down the canyon and up the ravine. She was feeling the adrenaline, but also the terror of doing something for the first time. She knew how to run with a backpack; they had trained her physically. But that's not training for flames. That's not live fire."
As California's fire season grows hotter, longer, and more extreme each year, roughly 30 percent of the wildland firefighters battling the blazes are inmates earning just a dollar an hour. Among them are approximately 200 women serving on all-female crews.
In Breathing Fire, Jaime Lowe expands on her revelatory reporting for The New York Times Magazine. Through years of interviews with dozens of women in the fire camp program, along with captains, correctional officers, family members, and camp commanders, Lowe offers a rare and illuminating look at the fire camps' actual operations.
This intimate portrayal of the women putting their lives on the line while imprisoned weaves together California's underlying catastrophes of climate change, economic disparity, and historical injustice. Drawing on deeply personal histories, relationships, desires, and frustrations, as well as the emotional and physical intensity of firefighting, Breathing Fire is a groundbreaking investigation of the prison system and the role of female inmate firefighters in a state facing an unprecedented crisis.