California’s prison system is leaning on an old-fashioned solution to a modern safety problem: instead of relying solely on fire alarms, the state is paying employees to walk the halls and watch for smoke and flames.
Between 2020 and 2025, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spent nearly $50 million on fire watch staffing, according to figures reviewed by CalMatters. Prison employees have logged roughly 270,000 hours over that span simply patrolling facilities and visually checking for signs of fire, based on job postings for the positions.
The reason traces back to the poor condition of fire alarm systems at most of California’s 31 prisons. Replacing them all would cost an estimated $1.5 billion, according to the department’s annual report submitted to the state in January.
Faced with outdated, malfunctioning and inoperable alarm systems, the state Office of the State Fire Marshal ordered the department to maintain human fire watches until the equipment is repaired or replaced. That mandate has proven costly. In a recent budget request, corrections officials asked for $15.2 million to fund fire watch coverage for the coming year, writing that the requirement “has resulted in significant expense to the department in personnel costs for fire watch.”
That sum is a small fraction of the department’s overall $14.6 billion budget, but the costs keep climbing well beyond projections. The Legislative Analyst’s Office reported that in June, the department announced it expected to spend about $40 million on fire watch coverage for the previous year — roughly $25 million more than originally budgeted.
The price tag for fixing the underlying problem is steep. According to cost estimates in the prison system’s facility master plan, replacing the fire alarm system at a single prison can run anywhere from $3 million to $87 million.
Caitlin O’Neil, a senior fiscal and policy analyst with the Legislative Analyst’s Office who tracks the corrections budget, said the department has traditionally assigned fire watch duty to correctional officers because the job requires keys and the ability to move freely throughout a prison. Those hours are typically billed as overtime. According to a 2024 state salary survey, an experienced correctional officer earns a base salary of $9,647 a month.
O’Neil said the department is now exploring cheaper staffing options, acknowledging that fully trained correctional officers bring skills well beyond fire detection. A pilot program is underway at California State Prison, Solano, where fire watch duties have been reclassified under a lower-paid “office technician” position supervised by a correctional sergeant. According to a job posting, the top salary for that role is $4,357 a month.
Royal Ramey, a firefighter who was formerly incarcerated and co-founded the nonprofit Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, said fire safety inside correctional facilities is not something the state can afford to compromise on.
“Incarcerated people, as well as staff at these facilities, deserve reliable systems and strong safeguards that keep everyone safe during emergencies,” he said. “In a fire emergency, there’s no room for failure in protection. But the priority has to remain protecting lives, while continuing to build permanent, dependable infrastructure solutions.”
Not everyone is convinced the spending is justified. Matt Cate, who served as California’s corrections secretary under former Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, said he’s skeptical of the arrangement, describing it as paying people to stand around looking for a problem that largely doesn’t exist.
“Large-scale prison fires are extremely rare because these buildings are made of concrete and steel,” Cate said. “Every prison has its own fire crew and staff present around the clock. Coverage is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Cate said the state enforces strict regulations to manage fire risk in its prisons, which puts the department in a bind: either spend hundreds of millions of dollars modernizing alarm systems, or keep requesting additional funding each year to maintain compliance through staffing.
“It’s a bit like deciding whether to buy the house or rent it,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s up to the governor’s office and the Legislature to decide how much to invest and how much to just manage the problem by hiring more people.”
Kristen Cowan, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo who studies how extreme weather disasters affect prisons and jails, said she was surprised to learn it’s legal for correctional facilities to operate with nonfunctioning fire alarm systems.
“This is basic disaster preparedness,” Cowan said. “It’s definitely concerning to know that technology is missing. It makes you wonder what else might be lacking at these facilities.”
Cowan warned that relying on human fire watches instead of modern detection technology could lead to significant delays in identifying fires, raising the risk of injuries, deaths and health problems tied to smoke exposure.
“We wouldn’t let anyone else live somewhere without a smoke detector,” she said.
Original source: CalMatters
