By Carlos Campos
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ALTO, Ga. — The fire station in this small North Georgia town has a distinctly feminine touch.
Instead of a Dalmatian, a shy calico kitten named Laci is the mascot. A red rose, crossed with a fire ax, is painted on the wall. The toilet seats are always down.
Meet the women of the Lee Arrendale State Prison Fire Station No. 1, a band of sisters who make up the only all-female inmate firefighting crew in Georgia. They are a supplemental firefighting team for Banks and Habersham counties and the city of Baldwin.
Big-city dwellers accustomed to professional, full-time firefighters might be surprised to learn that prison inmate crews often respond to fires, car crashes and medical emergencies in many parts of rural Georgia.
The Georgia Department of Corrections operates 18 firefighting stations staffed by inmates, from Walker County near the Tennessee border to Wayne County near the Georgia coast. Four more stations operate out of county prisons.
The work gives inmates the feeling they are making up for their wrongs.
“When I go in at the end of the day, it gives me a sense that I was useful — that I was purposeful,” said Arrendale firefighter Whitney Beauford, 21, serving a seven-year sentence for robbery by intimidation. “I’m helping the community. I’m doing something to better myself.”
As of Thursday, about 220 inmates in Georgia — from murderers to car thieves — had responded to 2,715 calls for assistance this year. Since 2000, they have handled more than 21,000 calls, according to a prison system report issued in August.
Inmates convicted of arson or sex offenses are the only ones prohibited from fire teams, though murderers are carefully screened, said Department of Corrections Fire Services Director Rick Huggins.
“In the rural parts of the state, these local volunteer fire departments depend heavily on the inmate fire department coming out and helping in the community,” said Lyn Pardue, executive director of the Georgia Firefighting Standards and Training Council. “They are very well-trained. They are professional-acting individuals, and they do exactly what they’re instructed to do.”
In some areas, inmate fire teams supplement local fire departments; in others, they are the sole responders.
The fire station just outside Arrendale’s ominous razor wire is making history for a second time. Georgia’s first inmate fire team, formed in 1962, operated out of Arrendale. Forty-four years later, it is the first to feature all women. Arrendale used to be a men’s prison, but converted to a women’s prison — one of three in the state — in 2004. For a short time, the supplemental firefighters weren’t available while the team made the transition to women and the women were trained and certified.
For prison inmates, firefighting offers major opportunities: It allows them to do most of their daytime hours outside of prison walls, in the far more relaxed atmosphere of a fire station. It also allows them to learn a profession they can take with them once they leave prison. Huggins said 26 former inmates have landed after-prison jobs as firefighters during his 12 years as director.
The nine prison firefighters at Arrendale spend their days at the fire station Monday through Friday. At night and on weekends, they go back to the prison, where they stay together in a dorm separate from the rest of the inmate population. In case of fire on nights and weekends, they can be shuttled to the station within a few minutes, said Arrendale Fire Chief Jessica Maher, who works for the prison system and leads the inmate team.
Firefighter Juanita Vega, serving a 10-year sentence for trafficking methamphetamine, first worked in the prison’s pig farming operation to prove she could be trusted in an outside detail.
“I’m a vegetarian, so it was hard,” Vega said. “It was a humbling experience, and I learned a lot.”
Now, Vega, 35, says, “I have a passion in my heart for firefighting.”
Many of the women hope to pursue a career in firefighting. Georgia law requires felons to wait 10 years after conviction before working as a firefighter. But the law exempts inmate firefighters certified through the Department of Corrections, who must wait only five years after a conviction to work in the field.
Inmate Mary Long, 41, serving a 20-year sentence for armed robbery, said she is determined to work as a firefighter upon release. She’s up for parole in two years.
“It’s become a reality that, ‘Hey, I can do this,’ ” she said. “It is my way of giving back to society.”
Cobb County Fire Chief Rebecca Denlinger, one of a handful of women in the nation leading a large fire department, said she believes firefighting will be a “life-changing experience” for the women of Arrendale.
“It’s like finding — especially for people who have sort of a daredevil tendency or like to take risks — some really useful, downright noble purpose for that kind of scary exhilaration,” she said.
The Arrendale firefighters are trained to respond only to structure fires, not medical emergencies. So far, they’ve responded to about four fires, including a blaze at a steakhouse in Baldwin.
Chief Maher is confident her team is trained well enough to handle any situation. “If I was in a fire and I needed to get out, I have no doubt they would be able to get me out,” she said.
While Beauford demonstrated to visitors how to dress quickly for a fire, she stuck her hand into a boot. “I broke a nail.”
As the other inmates chuckled, a horrified chief barked, “Don’t put that in there!” to a reporter standing nearby with a notebook.