Bulldozers of fire

Wildland firefighting is a coordinated effort. Like players on a sports team or musicians in an orchestra, hand crews, smokejumpers, water tenders, fire engines, helicopters, airtankers, and heavy equipment all converge on wildfires with two main goals: suppress the flames and do it safely. They all have a part to play.

“I’m in a 50,000-pound piece of equipment with a 12-foot metal blade.” That’s Dan Quinn, a heavy equipment operator with the Forest Service. When fighting wildfire he drives a bulldozer.

Quinn has been a heavy fire equipment operator on the Plumas National Forest for the last 10 years. He says he fights wildfires across the country 4 to 5 months out of the year and estimates he’s been to a couple hundred fires during his career.

“We essentially perform the same functions as a hand crew. Just like a hand crew attempts to head off a fire by cutting fire line with their chainsaws and hand tools, we fight fire the same way with the dozer, just faster and on a larger scale.”

Across the country, the Forest Service has about 160 pieces of heavy equipment, including bulldozers and tractor plows, strategically positioned to respond to wildfires. The agency employs about 200 equipment operators just like Quinn.

Bulldozers work in tandem with hand crews and engines to remove vegetation in front of the fire and deprive it of fuel. Bulldozers can often engage safely in situations that hotshots or engines cannot.