Heartland: Fireboys

This sobering documentary looks at the juvenile offenders who make up a large portion of the California forest firefighting crews.

We can debate the wisdom of California’s forest management policies some other time. (Or, how about now: They’re idiots!) But a sobering fact revealed in the documentary “Fireboys” is that as many as half of the firefighters battling the wildfires that spread across the Cali state every year are actually prison inmates who volunteer for this dangerous duty in exchange for time off their sentences.

Think about that for a minute: people forced to choose between years in a barren cell or risking their necks to save the lives and property of citizens who probably don’t have much use for them while they’re inmates, or even after they’re released.

The film, directed by Drew Dickler and Jakob Hochendoner, focuses in particular on juvenile offenders who sign up for this duty. These young men, usually between ages 18 and 20 (minors can’t participate), compete for the honor with the lure of a shortened sentence, getting paid for their work and learning valuable skills they can parlay into gainful employment after they’re released.

Only later on do they learn the pay is between $2-4 an hour, bumped up by a single buck when they’re actively deployed, or that most municipal or regional firefighting units won’t accept anyone with a violent conviction — which most of the boys we meet do.

It can be hard to believe, looking at these fresh-faced kids, most of them brown and black, with nascent mustaches they grow trying to look older. But then we listen and hear their stories, and what landed them in juvy prison: assault, carjacking, attempted murder and other terrible crimes. Some have been incarcerated for four years or more.

Fighting fires is literally their lifeline.

The documentary follows one prison group as they try out for and (some) are accepted to Pine Grove, one of the oldest and largest firefighting outfits for juvenile convicts. They get a lot of tough love from the teachers from CAL FIRE, the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection that “serves and safeguards the people and protects the property and resources of California.”

These grizzled firefighters, most in their 50s and 60s, run the teenagers through grueling hikes and training sessions, giving them encouragement but also making it clear they’ll soon be headed back to prison if they slack off or flap their lips. This happens to one of the boys we follow, seemingly for the infracton of insisting that his CPR demonstration was correct the first time he did it.

In particular, the filmmakers focus on three of the boys in the troop. Dominiq is 20, Black and bespectacled, with an infectious smile but also a moody streak. Alex is 18 and somewhat shy, and seems truly remorseful for the actions that landed him in jail. We get to meet his family, and from the expression on his face it’s clear Alex is more hurt by the pain he’s caused his mother than by his sentence.

Standing as an example for these new recruits is Chuy, age 20 and a veteran of three seasons at Pine Grove. Now a team leader, he is just a few weeks away from completing his sentence early, something he’s been looking forward to for years — but which now terrifies him. He muses at one point that he’d rather just stay with the unit digging firelines and chainsawing trees, even for free.

Over the course of the film, we gain an intimate knowledge of these youngsters, who soon ignore the camera crew and act just like the unbridled teens they are. They talk about girls, making money, the hardass bosses and, mostly, what they’re going to do when they get out.

It’s a constant yin-yang of pride and demoralization they feel. After Alex’s first run for a real bout of firefighting, they return to camp exhausted but triumphant — and are immediately made to strip down to their undies so their fire gear can be checked for contraband. I suppose somebody walked through miles of raging forest fires to slip them a dime bag or something?

Watching “Fireboys” is similarly an exercise in joy and depression. We start to feel for these young men despite their often horrific transgressions, want them to do well, muster out and move on with their lives in a positive way. One old firefighter says that one about one in 10 make it — but he’s for that one.

And so are we.