Los Angeles County Fire Department Dozers

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The Los Angeles County Fire Department uses bulldozers for various operations including wildfires, floods, mudslides, structure overhaul, or any kind of large incident where they may need a winching operation as well. Three people are required for each dozer team - a transportation truck driver, the equipment operator who runs the dozer, and a swamper who is the other set of eyes and ears on the fire.

Clayton Roadhouse, Sr. Fire Suppresson Aid/Dozer Swamper with the Heavy Equipment & Transportation Unit for the Los Angeles County Fire Department is responsible for keeping the operator informed of what is going on around them. He explained, "It's almost like you've got to be on a 360 swivel because he is looking at what he has to do, and I'm looking at what has to be done way ahead of the dozer. I'm looking for spot fires [as well as] fire behavior."

"I do all of the ground work too. If there is a spot fire that can be picked up, I'll be the guy on the ground with a shovel picking it up, or I'll call for an airdrop to get it in there and direct the crews into it also," Roadhouse added.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department uses two different types of dozers. Firefighting Construction Equipment Operator, also with the Heavy Equipment & Transportation Unit for the department, Jay Gardner, explained, "We have five of these D8R High Tracks with the 2-seat enclosed cabs, and then we have another five of the older model, with the lower tracks and an open cab which are the H & K models. So, we have 10 bulldozers all together."

The open cabs are used if more bulldozers are needed for project work or a fire. Riders wear a helmet attached to a blower box to filter the air. During a major fire, the closed cab dozers go out first because they are safer and communication is better. According to Gardner, even though smoke and dust enter the closed cab bulldozers, they have excellent filtered air systems. Riders also carry a small bottle of air and a face piece for emergencies. If riders were in a situation, such as a burn-over, the air tank would provide twenty minutes of air.

In a fire, the bulldozers are often right next to the flames, constructing fuel breaks and fire lines. "One foot in the black, that's how we like to do it. It's the safest place to be, right on the fires edge. We can get into the black. We have our safety zone right there with us, just like the guys fighting fire with the hand tools," said Gardner. "It doesn't always work because of terrain and rocks and certain things may force us to go indirect. In that case, we would build safety zones as we go."

The unit also includes two track loaders that they use for structure overhaul, two rubber tire loaders, and three graters that they use for maintaining roads. The Los Angeles County Fire Department has approximately 300 miles of motor ways, or fire roads, that they maintain, enabling people to access certain areas.

Another part of the unit is the transportation truck driver, who either hauls the equipment to the incident, or is assigned to a heli-tender. During fire season, the department has six heli-tenders kept in strategic locations so that they are ready for fires anywhere in the county. "If you are assigned to that, and a brush fire is dispatched out, and they send out the helicopters, the heli-tender will go and support the helicopter with 3,000 gallons of jet fuel and foam that will run out the supply hose that will fill them up, get them back in the air. That way they can drop more water and keep fighting the fire," said Todd Damann, Transportation Truck Driver for the LACoFD Heavy Equipment & Transportation Unit.

Roadhouse said of his job, "There is never one day that is the same because we've always got something going on, something different that's happening."


Author:Barbara Brooks - FDNNTV.com