Wildland Fire Dozers

[D6 Merv]

Amazing, it worked, heres a couple more, if only to show you boys in the US where the other side of the pacific ocean ends.
Cheers Merv :drinkup

 

[idk]

More

Is the dozer thats on it's side from Ventura Co.
Roger

 

[idk]

here is another of that 8

if it works

That is a nice K you dont see very many K's in SoCal.
Roger

 

[Stripeyjack]

And further west a little from D6 Merv, heres some Aussie Fire Dozers
Cat D7...Alpine Fires 2003
Dresser TD 20... NorthEast Fires 2006-07
Cat D7R...off-season fire (road projects) 2008
Cat D4G...NorthEast Fires 2006-07
Cheers :beerchug
Stripeyjack

 

[Bellboy]

Pity we don't have something like that here in dry SA. should think about doing that for our fire break season. last year we had a dreadful fire that burned for 1.5 weeks. it destroyed farmland and thousands of acres of commercial forests. If only we had had that for the dum farmer who started it. he was burning a fire break, and only had a bucket of water on standby. Love the pics. Love the last one, the small dozer on the back of an Isuzu. What is it, can't see?

 

[JDOFMEMI]

Nice shots there Merv.
Looks like a great place to work at. Its great to be able to work all day while taking in that kind of view.
Nice little pan there, what does it carry?

Stripey
I see some well set up firecats there. I especially like the one with the tree pusher.

idk
I was told by the local cat dealer in the early 90's that they had over 300 D-8K's in their territory. I know theres not many left, most have upgraded to N's and R's, but I still know of close to a dozen close to me. I retired my last K in 2002

 

[D5G]

man those are some awesome dozers....I bet its always interesting for any/all of you guys to get the call to go to a fire.

 

[bear]

Nice pics guys. Thanks! :drinkup How wide do you cut the fire breaks? Do you cast everything to the side the fire is on (if possible) or... :beatsme

 

[D6 Merv]

Hi JDOFMEMI
The Dozer with the scoop is a long track frame D4E and the hydraulic scoop holds 6 yards. The D4 handles it quite easily and is very handy for alot of my smaller jobs, where its easier to carry dirt rather than push it.
Cheers Merv

 

[Bellboy]

As far as I'm concerned, the firebreak should be cut as wide as machinely possible. And then again.

 

[OCR]

Fire Dozers

bear,

Thanks for the interest... Almost always cast away from the direction the fire is burning. This leaves a bare (different word, but close to pun) edge if and when the fire hits it. If you cast in, you leave a big berm of dirt with grass, weeds, sage brush, etc., mixed in. If that fuel gets on fire...when the
fire bumps it... it can stay hot for days... makes for a real mop up hassle. I
have, on rare occasions, dozed the berm right on the fire to put it out, and
that does work... You absolutely need the say so from your dozer boss before
doing it... and it's rather unpleasant, even in a AC'd cab.

Line width is usually dictated by fire managment... however, I've seen miles
of fire; little wind, short flame lengths, pretty flat, stopped by a simple cow path/trail. In timber... well, if it's in the tops... "crown fire", and windy... the
fire can be spotting a half mile, a mile, even farther, in front of the main fire.
If all those 11's that were pushing together in that posted picture, had made a cat line like that before the fire, there would have been a good road and
parking area for engines after the fire went through. You just can't stop them that way.

Thanks bear...OCR

 

[Firecat11]

California Lightining Strikes 2008

Here are some pics from some of the fires in California during the Summer of 2008

 

[dg5]

anydody have cal fire dozer pics?

 

[Bellboy]

Welcome DG5. read all about those fires. Very scary.

 

[dg5]

Thanks Bellboy. Firecat11 do you know of anybody hiring? I just moved to your neck of the wood. I'm having a hard time finding any work.

 

[ddiiggy]

Who actually runs these machines?

Do they have staff fire-fighters with experience who do only this or do they grab whatever employee is available and end up with this?

 

[stretch]

If they grabbed an employee with no dozer experience, the fire would probably get worse if they didn't flip the dozer first. They need trained operators like Firecat and OCR who could probably tell you more about it. :usa

 

[95zIV]

Who actually runs these machines?

Do they have staff fire-fighters with experience who do only this or do they grab whatever employee is available and end up with this?

That first picture of the guy with the machine up on the trailer like that doesn't strike me as inexperienced at all. In that line of work and with the way that trailer is designed I'd say it's close to if not at least 10 times faster to load and unload that way. That second picture yeah, the operator may have not been the oldest or most experienced on the job but, no one here seems to know just what exactly happened there. If I remember right there's a very experienced pan operator here who rolled a machine because there was a washout or something like that he didn't see. So just because there's a picture of what looked like someone who didn't know anything, doesn't mean that's the case. Also remember sometimes those people you just grab and throw on a machine because they're available just have the knack and operate like it's second nature to them.

 

[Dozer575]

Please keep the pictures comming, I would love a chance at doing that.

 

[Wild Pete]

Dozer School

ddiiggy

Cal Fire runs a dozer school at Ione California. Training usually happens in May of each year.

Cal Fire, Kern County Fire and another different agencies send operators to instruct the new operators from a lot of different departments. I believe that if you wanted to put a dozer on contract in CA you, as a civilian might be able to attend the school at your own expense.

Wild Pete