The wildfires currently scorching through the Western United States have compelled the state of California to send in state prisoners to fight the flames.

According to Mother Jones, between 30 and 40 percent of California's forest firefighters are state prison inmates, which mean that about 4,000 low-level felons are combating active fires.

The prisoners, who earn $2 an hour if they happen to be on a fire line, are being culled from California's "conservation camps," a prison system program in which low-level felons in the state prison system volunteer to do manual labor outside. The duties involved in the program typically include clearing brush in order to prevent fires from happening. Although several other states operate similar prisoner work programs, California's program is the largest one, serving the dual purposes of providing inmates with useful skills and saving the state around $80 million a year in services.

According to Hadar Aviram, a law professor and criminologist from the University of California-Hastings, the program helps to break down the racial segregation that often exists in prisons.

"When people are incarcerated they tend to segregate by race," Aviram said. "The fire camps are not like that. People who do not associate with each other inside a prison are willing to be friends when they're at a fire camp."

Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for Cal Fire, explained rather than using the opportunity to try to escape, inmates fighting the fires are grateful for the chance to be outdoors and do some good.

"This is a reward for many of these individuals," he said. "They're outside the walls, doing good work, learning a skill that they may not get behind bars. They don't want to screw up."

As reported by NBC, there are currently over 100 wildfires burning across the West. On Sunday rampant fires forced evacuations in Oregon and California and left thousands without power in Washington.