Two Female Inmates Escape From CYA Firefighting Squad

Three weeks after dispatching its first all-female firefighting team, the California Youth Authority said two inmates from the team escaped into the foothills near Ojai Monday while cleaning up debris from a recent blaze.

Brenda Cobar, 19, and Monica Santana, 18, were discovered missing at 12:50 p.m. during a routine count by a CYA supervisor of the 17 female inmates working on the northern end of Foothill Road, said Cynthia Brown, program superintendent.

Deputies from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department combed the area. A helicopter and two dogs also scoured the hills, said Chris Russell, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department.

But Sheriff’s deputies said they had not located the women, who officials believe may be dangerous, by Monday evening.

Santana was incarcerated at the CYA’s Ventura School facility near Camarillo in 1986 for a gang-related assault with a deadly weapon. Cobar has served time at the facility on Wright Road since 1986 for robbery, Brown said.

Santana was up for parole in March, 1991, and Cobar in December of this year. Now, authorities will ask that a minimum of one year be added to each of their sentences, Brown said.

The two are part of the CYA’s first all-woman team, which was dispatched June 26 to battle the blaze that rushed through about 600 acres of brush near Ojai. The women were then sent to cut brush and create fire lines in the Santa Barbara fire and later to fight back minor brush fires in Thousand Oaks and Santa Paula.

The CYA has used male inmates on firefighting crews since 1946 as part of a program operated in conjunction with the California Department of Forestry. In January, the CYA decided to give women the same opportunity to earn money and get job training.

“We wanted to offer the same training opportunities to females that males were offered,” Brown said.

About 80 women were screened to find 17 qualified members for the program, Brown said. A backup crew is now in training, she said.

The women must have four to 24 months remaining to serve so that they can put their training to use for at least one fire season, Brown said. In addition, inmates convicted of arson or sex offenses are not allowed in the program.

And anyone who attempted to escape in the past three years was immediately ruled out, Brown said.

The women selected for the firefighting crew underwent two months of rigorous physical training that included weightlifting, running and hill-climbing. They also attended 64 hours of classes covering types of fires, firefighting techniques and ways to avoid injury.

The women earn $5.50 a week for the first 30 days of the program and seasoned members may earn up to $8.50 a week. They make an additional $1 an hour for time spent actually fighting fires.

In April, the Ventura School imported four 17-member male firefighting crews from another CYA camp when it was judged that Ventura County was a good central location for fighting fires up and down the state. They are housed in a minimum-security camp near the CYA facility on Wright Road. No male inmate has tried to escape while fighting a fire or cleaning up after one, Brown said.

State authorities said that only 24 inmates have escaped from fire crews since the CYA first instituted them in 1946.

“They’re working under emergency lines,” said spokeswoman Sarah Andrade. “They’re in the heat of the battle and problems are very minimal.”

Brown said she had no intention of changing the program because of the escapes.

“Basically, we try to keep a close eye on them,” she said. “But we realize when they are out, and the opportunity arises, they’re going to try to get away.”