State workplace regulators said Monday they have launched an investigation into the death of an inmate firefighter in San Diego County this month, the second fatality involving a prison firefighter in California this year.
In fact, the only state firefighters to be killed in the line of duty this year were prisoners, Cal Fire officials said.
Frank Anaya died last Tuesday after he fell onto an active chainsaw being operated on a steep hill in Lakeside a week earlier.
The incident took place in the early afternoon of July 5, moments after a wildfire was reported near Interstate 8.
Anaya’s team was called to the scene and began cutting fire lines with a separate saw team. He was helping another inmate firefighter, known as a sawyer, who was using a Stihl MS461 chainsaw. The 22-year-old Anaya was pulling away branches after they were cut and exposing them so the other prisoner could cut them from their bases.
Minutes after they began working, a sawyer on the other saw team lost his footing and slid down a hill.
Around 2:20 that afternoon — in 92-degree heat — Anaya was standing on a rock on a 58 percent slope, pushing sumac brush, when a branch he was leaning on snapped. He lost balance, stepped forward and inadvertently straddled the 24-inch bar of the chainsaw, which struck the back of his upper right thigh, according to a preliminary report from Cal Fire.
“Oww, I’ve been hit,” Anaya said, according to the fire agency’s “green sheet.”
Another inmate firefighter holding the chainsaw felt the device grab on Anaya’s chaps. That prisoner turned the saw off, removed it from the Kevlar protection it was then entwined in and pulled the bleeding Anaya to an area where paramedics began administering first aid.
He died at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego.
Cal Fire is conducting a “serious accident review” of the incident to determine if any of the department’s rules were broken or if it should lead to any policy changes. A top-ranking agency official, though, says there doesn’t seem to be any wrongdoing.
“At this point it does not appear that there were any blatant violations of any policy or protocol,” said Dave Teter, a Cal Fire deputy director and chief of the department’s fire protection programs, in an interview on Monday.
“These guys are in the heat of battle,” Teter said. “They’re trying to get ahead of the fire. They know that there were structures on the top of the hill so they were focused on getting the job done.”
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) mistakenly said earlier this month that Anaya had accidentally cut himself.
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) is investigating Cal Fire and the CDCR in connection with Anaya’s July 11 death, Cal/OSHA spokesman Luke Brown said in an email Monday.
The state workplace safety agency is also investigating the same two departments in connection with the May 24 death of inmate Matthew Beck. He was clearing brush near the community of Orleans (Humboldt County) in Six Rivers National Forest when a 3,000-pound tree fell on him.
State prison officials have emphasized that injuries to inmate firefighters are rare, that the two recent accidents are isolated incidents and that the safety record of the inmate firefighting program is excellent.
But three of the five inmates to die in the line of duty since the prison firefighting program began in the 1940s were killed in the last two years.
Over a year before Anaya and Beck were killed, Shawna Lynn Jones was struck in the head by a falling boulder while helping work a fire in Malibu. She became the first female inmate firefighter to die in state history.
California relies heavily on prisoners during wildfire season. Inmates in the program receive $2 an hour when battling fires, and some of them get time off their sentences. The state estimates the program saves as much as $90 million a year.
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Updated 11 a.m. Tuesday:
An inmate firefighter who was helping battle a wildfire in San Diego County last week died Tuesday morning from injuries he received after accidentally cutting himself with a chainsaw on July 5.
The death of Frank Anaya, 22, marks the second death of a prisoner working a wildland blaze this year in California.
“We are saddened by the death of Frank Anaya, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends,” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Secretary Scott Kernan wrote in a press release. “Anaya provided an invaluable public service and helped protect our communities from devastating fires.”
On May 24, a 3,000-pound tree fell on a prisoner in Humboldt County, killing him. That inmate, Matthew Beck, was clearing brush near the community of Orleans in Six Rivers National Forest.
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) is investigating Cal Fire and the CDCR in connection with that incident.
Last year, Shawna Lynn Jones was struck in the head by a falling boulder while helping work a fire in Malibu, becoming the first female inmate firefighter to die in state history.
Anaya was leading a crew in Lakeside on the afternoon of July 5, cutting brush to create a containment line, when he accidentally cut his right upper leg with a chainsaw.
Anaya was taken to a local hospital following the accident and underwent multiple surgeries, according to Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the CDCR.
The prisoner was serving time for corporal injury of a spouse, possession of an assault weapon and possession of a concealed weapon, Sessa said.
Sessa emphasized that an injury to an inmate firefighter is rare.
“Considering the danger that the firefighters are in, it’s amazing that we actually have very few firefighters who get hurt on the job,” Sessa said Friday.
The two recent accidents are isolated incidents, Sessa emphasized. “The safety record of this program is excellent,” he said.
The state relies heavily on prisoners during wildfire season. Inmates in the program receive $2 an hour when battling fires. Some of them get time off their sentences. The state estimates the program saves as much as $90 million a year.
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SAN DIEGO, CA (AP) - Authorities say a firefighter who died after he was cut with a chain saw lost his balance while battling a San Diego County blaze.
Twenty-two-year-old Frank Anaya died Tuesday. The inmate firefighter underwent several surgeries after he was injured while clearing brush to protect a mobile home park in Lakeside on July 5.
The San Diego Union-Tribune, citing a state fire report, says Anaya was standing on a rock and pushing against a shrub that his partner was cutting with a 24-inch chain saw when a branch snapped.
Anaya lost his balance, fell and landed on the chain saw, which cut the back of his thigh.
The former Ventura County resident had been in custody since September, serving a three-year sentence for spousal assault and a weapons crime.