"After these LA fires, I feel fired up. I feel bad that I wasn't out there with my boys." Nathan Murillo is reflecting on the Los Angeles fires, along with his own experiences fighting fires.
Murillo is a former inmate, and he fought fires in a firefighting program while he was in prison.
"It's like risk reward: do you want to live that old lifestyle and suffer the consequences or do you want to strive to be a better person and get rewarded with coming home early and possibly getting, starting a career," said Murillo.
He was based at Camp Francisquito, and during that year-long program, he actively protected his community by fighting fires by the Oregon border and in Lancaster, California.
"We fought everything from big timber to grass fires and I was fortunate enough to be able to work with every tool they had on the crew," said Murillo.
Murillo said the program had expectations for himself and the other inmates.
"You can't, like if you're in the firefighting program, you can't get be getting in fights with other inmates, you can't be mouthing off to your foreman, it's kind of like real life, real life rules, cause you can get kicked out like that, because there are hundreds of other guys getting ready to get into the program," Murillo said about his experience.
He's now taking steps to eventually having a firefighting career, and has the dream of working with CAL FIRE.
"I still feel that passion or pursue this career is that no other job that I've had gives me that fulfilling feeling that I've had from helping my community," said Murillo. "And I think that going through the fire camp program is something that really changed my mentality of the way I channel my decisions."
Overall, he said it's about his perspective.
"Realizing that it actually feels better to do good for the community than to do things that are negative towards society," said Murillo.
