I am a retired FF and I made my living on wildland fires for 34 years. Think about it lumpy, you are looking at a still picture and it is easy to have the perfect plan to deal with this fire under those conditions. But it isn't that easy in a moving wind driven fire. Dozers are not like Tonka toys that you just pick up and move around where ever you see the need. It takes time to move dozers, you need the right amount too, one dozer acting alone would be useless at the least and deadly at the worst. You need engines and crews to finish after the dozers go through. If a dozer has mechanical trouble, runs up against too steep of a slope, the fire spots behind them, or out in front of them, the fire is gone.
Remember there are many many fires going in TX right now, the wind is kicking, and information is not getting out fast enough, to have the right resources at the right place. These are not your everyday back yard fires, these are massive campaign fires with people in management from all over the country who are not as knowledgeable of the local conditions, terrain and resources as the local fire department may be. Independent action by single resources get firefighters killed.
We used to get all kinds of suggestions from well meaning civilians. "Put up a line of rainbirds and the fire will be put out by the water sprinklers, use heavy artillery to shoot water balloons at the fire. Bomb the fire with explosives like Red Adair does to blow out oil wells. This is not a new science. Large wildland fires are fought like a large military battle with plans, logistics, and operations. And, believe it or not safety of the firefighters and the public are the first though and responsibility of all firefighters. Some fires are not safe to fight at the time the photographers are shooting their pictures. The best time to fight these fires is at night when the humidity is up and the winds are down. That is when the most success with the least risk is.
Oleclint, here is a list of resources that are assigned to the Possum King complex in TX as of yesterday. Note the number of dozers:
Hand Crews: 23
Fire Engines: 122
Helicopters: 108
Dozers: 250
Water Tenders: 11
Overhead: 230
Total Personnel Assigned: 790
Sorry guys if you think I am going off on you, I just have been there and done that too many times.
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