Two engine crews and a dozer install 16,000 feet of hose on the Dixie Fire. CAL FIRE photo.
The hardest part of installing long hose lays in rugged terrain is hauling the hose, and it is usually uphill. When the plans called for 16,000 feet of hose to be installed on the Dixie Fire it just took two engine crews and some ingenuity to get it done. They enlisted the help of dozer E2085 from Paula and sons Earthwork.
The CAL FIRE crews were Lassen Modoc engines E2271 and E2251.
Two engine crews and a dozer install 16,000 feet of hose on the Dixie Fire. CAL FIRE photo.Two engine crews and a dozer install 16,000 feet of hose on the Dixie Fire. CAL FIRE photo.Two engine crews and a dozer install 16,000 feet of hose on the Dixie Fire. CAL FIRE photo.
One day in the not too distant future it will become routine to haul hose with drones.
To see all articles on Wildfire Today about the Dixie Fire, including the most recent, click here.
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After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.
View all posts by Bill Gabbert
22 thoughts on “How two engine crews installed a 16,000-foot hose lay”
Paula and Sons Earthworks is very proud to have been part of this particular project. Thanks for the write up!
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Fun post. I have put in quite a few 15-20k ft. hoselays, but with twenty person crews. Caught a 15acre IA with my engine by putting in 3,500ft in 3hrs one night in steep country. My favorite method so far is by UTV where you can swing it. Put in 1,500ft by myself in about 45minutes that way! Sorry for the brag fest. Just wanted to share that we do stuff like this on the daily to general JohnQ,s out there. Hey, hey, hey! I love my occupation…Keep on rocking brothers and sisters. We got this!
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A job well done! That’s a lot of hard work. Reminds me of a fire past…
In 1977, I was a member of ANF Engine 5-5 out of Big Tujunga Station. John Stevenson was the “Foreman”, Rocky Largent was the “TTO”. We were dispatched to the Hog fire on the KNF along with 4 other engines from the forest. We were told that it was the first engine strike team to be dispatched to “North Zone” (I have no documentation to prove this). John was the STL/E, he didn’t have his own rig, he just rode in the engine. Long story short we were assigned, along with 2 engines from the SNF (David Hill RIP, and Pat “Smiley” Tiereny were on those crews) to construct a staged hose lay from the Sawyers Bar road up Yellowjacket ridge. Stan Delong who developed the Ojai hose pack, designed and supervised the construction of the hose lay, he may have been the Sector Boss. I think it was 6 or 7 miles on the map, it took us a week. Everyone carried a canvas backpack of 1 1/2″ CJRL on their back and a pack of 1″ CJRL on their front, brass fittings included. In addition we took turns carrying pumps, gas etc… (Work like this is one of the reasons I have a bad back and knees). One day we got lucky and ran into some dozers. Rocky got the idea of tying the male end of the hose to the dozer, we connected hose as the dozer drug it up the hill. That was the easy day, but we still had to carry the pumps!
I have total respect for the firefighters on the line these days. You see fire behavior I never saw in 39 years of firefighting. I’m amazed there are not more injuries.
BTW… In the 60’s they experimented with laying hose with helicopters. It didn’t pan out because the hose always got hung up in the vegetation. If you can figure something else out, more power to ya…
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How about 6 inch schedule 40 pipe? Joined using orbital mig or even 1 bolt groove clamps you should be able to drag it through just about anything.
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These guys didn’t just haul in enough hose to do the lay – they also had to bring in additional hose to replace broken lengths. Guaranteed this would happen on a lay this long. We used to drop a roll of hose every few hundred feet just to have it available when a length ruptured. I hardly ever put in a lateral when making a lay. If we needed a lateral for mop-up later we clamped the coupling on each end and put a lateral in. Making the lay is only part of the work. After the fire the hose has to be picked up and brought out – always by hand to a place where it can be loaded on a truck. Then, it has to be washed, thoroughly drained, and inspected. If there is even a suspicion it’s been damaged it has to be pressure tested. Then it all has to be rolled and tied for storage until the next time. Making a lay on a direct attack is pure adrenalin rush. Picking up the hose afterward an doing all the other needed stuff is nothing but pure work!!! Those engine crews and dozer operator did one heck of a job putting in that lay.
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Are there any reports on whether the hose lay functioned?
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That is the question I want answered! and how was there ever enough pressure to pump water that far?
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Our suppression drone (in development) could carry up to 500 feet of charged 2.5” hose, an suppress the fire through a 1.5” nozzle (up to 450Gpm).
We believe drone suppression technology, can help to relieve (free up) firefighters for more important tasks, in the suppression of wildfires and wildfires encroaching upon urban areas.
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Wow, I didn’t think anyone laid hose any more. My first season, our strike team laid 8K feet of hose, no dozer. Guess who got to “go back for more!” That’s one of the things that kept me in this job for 40+ years. Great work by all involved, you should be proud.
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I’ve been preaching that this is the future of effective wildland firefighting for years. Take it to the next level with purpose-built, track-mounted hose carriers/booster pumps that can draw from the nearest water source to deliver larger amounts of water, faster, and more continuously and do it more safely and economically than any aerial firefighting effort. Are you listening, Caterpillar Corp? There’s money to be made here.
Don’t get me wrong, I have the highest respect for the pilots who risk their lives to fight fires from the air. I’m just saying there’s no need for wildland firefighting to remain stuck in a paradigm that is clearly failing as often as it succeeds. Aircraft have the advantage of being able to deliver in difficult-to-reach places, but they have the disadvantage of more often than not only being able to deliver enough to knock down hot spots, but not to decisively put a fire out on a broad front. Developing the right extended-range hose line technology has the potential to stop a fire cold. Review Sun Tzu’s principle of “economy of force” in The Art of War, and you’ll see that current firefighting methods are applying too little to win, for weeks or months on end.
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Bill, when you said about drones carrying the fire hose,
were you referring to the Latvian company Aerones,
or something in development at another Wildfire Tech company ?
I will guess that it works out to about 2000 pounds per mile of hose ?
That would make the hoses in the pictures about a 6000 pound load.
The aerone drones can handle 440 pounds. So 15 drones to carry all those fire hoses, 5 per ton.
Maybe each of the Aerone drones can carry about 1000 feet of hose.
Is that a 2 inch diameter hose ?
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Several companies are working on drones that might in the next few years lead to commercial models that can carry hundreds of feet of hose. If there were a swarm of drones the task would get done even more quickly.
There are variations, but many hose lays on wildland fires are 1.5″ with a 1″ lateral every 100′. All lengths are 100′ long. CAL FIRE often does not put in laterals.
I did 35 fire seasons with CDF/Cal Fire.
We ALWAYS put in laterals. Always! 1 1/5″
hose, in packs, hauled up the line on the backs of FF’s, are preloaded with gated wyes. 1″ hose, in packs, is also delivered on the backs of FF’s and connected to the gated eyes. Fundamental, SOP.
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One of the first wildfire BOOKS to employ a drone was RIVER OF FIRE, John Maclean’s book on northern California’s Rattlesnake Fire. Kari Greer did the photos for the book, and shot some of the images on the Mendocino with her drone.
(Not the cover images, though, those were her photos of the Thomas Fire in southern California.)
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Robust effort!??
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Three miles of hose? Sounds impossible to me but I’m just an engineer. I’m also almost totally ignorant of wildland firefighting. I would like to know some stuff about the process of laying and using hose in a situation like this. First how common is it to lay hose like this? Is this a very long example? How much hose is on each small spool and how much does each one weigh? How is the main length tapped when water is needed somewhere along the line? How would a line of this size be pressurized? What is the diameter of the line they’re laying?
Just idle curiosity.
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I’m a wildland firefighter and an engineer. Feel free to email me @ tangosdown@gmail.com and I can answer most of your questions.
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One section of inch and 1/2 hose which is 100 ft weighs roughly 30 lb. Altogether that hose will a wood way about seven to eight thousand pounds dry
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Pretty creative thinking by some unskilled laborers, huh
Congressman?
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Words are the Voice of the Heart!! “Never give up”…..Nice job!! Firefighters… Shalom??
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Whoever the overhead was that approved this should get a raise and a gold star and maybe even promoted to USFS Chief. Too many times to count Ive been part of crews assigned to do similar tasks and when we run our request past our DIVS or whomever we are working for at the time for equipment assistance we are called “ lazy” or “its a waste of a resource to assist you guys” or the classic “ This 1-2 day project needs to last you the next 5 days because we dont want to demob you guys just yet so make it last”. So many people are finger pointing to the suits in DC about USFS problems but these problems runs downslope quite a ways from DC that need fixing. Kudos to these guys for an honest, solid shift and maximizing resource use!
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To be clear… that’s over 3 miles of hose! 160 sticks of 11/2″ hose! At least 80 sticks of 1″ laterals! As many as 160 depending! And 80/160 gated wyes! Mountainous terrain means a helluva hike to make all those connections – out and back!!
Hauled by dozer or not… that’s an effing gargantuan effort!!!
Awesome job!
Paula and Sons Earthworks is very proud to have been part of this particular project. Thanks for the write up!
Fun post. I have put in quite a few 15-20k ft. hoselays, but with twenty person crews. Caught a 15acre IA with my engine by putting in 3,500ft in 3hrs one night in steep country. My favorite method so far is by UTV where you can swing it. Put in 1,500ft by myself in about 45minutes that way! Sorry for the brag fest. Just wanted to share that we do stuff like this on the daily to general JohnQ,s out there. Hey, hey, hey! I love my occupation…Keep on rocking brothers and sisters. We got this!
A job well done! That’s a lot of hard work. Reminds me of a fire past…
In 1977, I was a member of ANF Engine 5-5 out of Big Tujunga Station. John Stevenson was the “Foreman”, Rocky Largent was the “TTO”. We were dispatched to the Hog fire on the KNF along with 4 other engines from the forest. We were told that it was the first engine strike team to be dispatched to “North Zone” (I have no documentation to prove this). John was the STL/E, he didn’t have his own rig, he just rode in the engine. Long story short we were assigned, along with 2 engines from the SNF (David Hill RIP, and Pat “Smiley” Tiereny were on those crews) to construct a staged hose lay from the Sawyers Bar road up Yellowjacket ridge. Stan Delong who developed the Ojai hose pack, designed and supervised the construction of the hose lay, he may have been the Sector Boss. I think it was 6 or 7 miles on the map, it took us a week. Everyone carried a canvas backpack of 1 1/2″ CJRL on their back and a pack of 1″ CJRL on their front, brass fittings included. In addition we took turns carrying pumps, gas etc… (Work like this is one of the reasons I have a bad back and knees). One day we got lucky and ran into some dozers. Rocky got the idea of tying the male end of the hose to the dozer, we connected hose as the dozer drug it up the hill. That was the easy day, but we still had to carry the pumps!
I have total respect for the firefighters on the line these days. You see fire behavior I never saw in 39 years of firefighting. I’m amazed there are not more injuries.
BTW… In the 60’s they experimented with laying hose with helicopters. It didn’t pan out because the hose always got hung up in the vegetation. If you can figure something else out, more power to ya…
How about 6 inch schedule 40 pipe? Joined using orbital mig or even 1 bolt groove clamps you should be able to drag it through just about anything.
These guys didn’t just haul in enough hose to do the lay – they also had to bring in additional hose to replace broken lengths. Guaranteed this would happen on a lay this long. We used to drop a roll of hose every few hundred feet just to have it available when a length ruptured. I hardly ever put in a lateral when making a lay. If we needed a lateral for mop-up later we clamped the coupling on each end and put a lateral in. Making the lay is only part of the work. After the fire the hose has to be picked up and brought out – always by hand to a place where it can be loaded on a truck. Then, it has to be washed, thoroughly drained, and inspected. If there is even a suspicion it’s been damaged it has to be pressure tested. Then it all has to be rolled and tied for storage until the next time. Making a lay on a direct attack is pure adrenalin rush. Picking up the hose afterward an doing all the other needed stuff is nothing but pure work!!! Those engine crews and dozer operator did one heck of a job putting in that lay.
Are there any reports on whether the hose lay functioned?
That is the question I want answered! and how was there ever enough pressure to pump water that far?
Our suppression drone (in development) could carry up to 500 feet of charged 2.5” hose, an suppress the fire through a 1.5” nozzle (up to 450Gpm).
We believe drone suppression technology, can help to relieve (free up) firefighters for more important tasks, in the suppression of wildfires and wildfires encroaching upon urban areas.
Wow, I didn’t think anyone laid hose any more. My first season, our strike team laid 8K feet of hose, no dozer. Guess who got to “go back for more!” That’s one of the things that kept me in this job for 40+ years. Great work by all involved, you should be proud.
I’ve been preaching that this is the future of effective wildland firefighting for years. Take it to the next level with purpose-built, track-mounted hose carriers/booster pumps that can draw from the nearest water source to deliver larger amounts of water, faster, and more continuously and do it more safely and economically than any aerial firefighting effort. Are you listening, Caterpillar Corp? There’s money to be made here.
Don’t get me wrong, I have the highest respect for the pilots who risk their lives to fight fires from the air. I’m just saying there’s no need for wildland firefighting to remain stuck in a paradigm that is clearly failing as often as it succeeds. Aircraft have the advantage of being able to deliver in difficult-to-reach places, but they have the disadvantage of more often than not only being able to deliver enough to knock down hot spots, but not to decisively put a fire out on a broad front. Developing the right extended-range hose line technology has the potential to stop a fire cold. Review Sun Tzu’s principle of “economy of force” in The Art of War, and you’ll see that current firefighting methods are applying too little to win, for weeks or months on end.
Bill, when you said about drones carrying the fire hose,
were you referring to the Latvian company Aerones,
or something in development at another Wildfire Tech company ?
https://www.businessinsider.com/aerones-firefighting-drones-2018-4
( Beware the Business Insider video ads ! )
I will guess that it works out to about 2000 pounds per mile of hose ?
That would make the hoses in the pictures about a 6000 pound load.
The aerone drones can handle 440 pounds. So 15 drones to carry all those fire hoses, 5 per ton.
Maybe each of the Aerone drones can carry about 1000 feet of hose.
Is that a 2 inch diameter hose ?
Several companies are working on drones that might in the next few years lead to commercial models that can carry hundreds of feet of hose. If there were a swarm of drones the task would get done even more quickly.
In October I wrote about some of the concepts being developed.
There are variations, but many hose lays on wildland fires are 1.5″ with a 1″ lateral every 100′. All lengths are 100′ long. CAL FIRE often does not put in laterals.
Here are some weights of 100′ lengths of hose used on wildland fires:
1.5″, synthetic jacket, lined, 15.9 lbs.
1.5″, cotton-synthetic jacket, lined, 26.9 lbs.
1″, synthetic jacket, lined, 9.4 lbs.
1″, cotton-synthetic jacket, lined, 22.4 lbs.
You also need gated wyes, reducers, and nozzles.
I did 35 fire seasons with CDF/Cal Fire.
We ALWAYS put in laterals. Always! 1 1/5″
hose, in packs, hauled up the line on the backs of FF’s, are preloaded with gated wyes. 1″ hose, in packs, is also delivered on the backs of FF’s and connected to the gated eyes. Fundamental, SOP.
One of the first wildfire BOOKS to employ a drone was RIVER OF FIRE, John Maclean’s book on northern California’s Rattlesnake Fire. Kari Greer did the photos for the book, and shot some of the images on the Mendocino with her drone.
(Not the cover images, though, those were her photos of the Thomas Fire in southern California.)
Robust effort!??
Three miles of hose? Sounds impossible to me but I’m just an engineer. I’m also almost totally ignorant of wildland firefighting. I would like to know some stuff about the process of laying and using hose in a situation like this. First how common is it to lay hose like this? Is this a very long example? How much hose is on each small spool and how much does each one weigh? How is the main length tapped when water is needed somewhere along the line? How would a line of this size be pressurized? What is the diameter of the line they’re laying?
Just idle curiosity.
I’m a wildland firefighter and an engineer. Feel free to email me @ tangosdown@gmail.com and I can answer most of your questions.
One section of inch and 1/2 hose which is 100 ft weighs roughly 30 lb. Altogether that hose will a wood way about seven to eight thousand pounds dry
Pretty creative thinking by some unskilled laborers, huh
Congressman?
Words are the Voice of the Heart!! “Never give up”…..Nice job!! Firefighters… Shalom??
Whoever the overhead was that approved this should get a raise and a gold star and maybe even promoted to USFS Chief. Too many times to count Ive been part of crews assigned to do similar tasks and when we run our request past our DIVS or whomever we are working for at the time for equipment assistance we are called “ lazy” or “its a waste of a resource to assist you guys” or the classic “ This 1-2 day project needs to last you the next 5 days because we dont want to demob you guys just yet so make it last”. So many people are finger pointing to the suits in DC about USFS problems but these problems runs downslope quite a ways from DC that need fixing. Kudos to these guys for an honest, solid shift and maximizing resource use!
To be clear… that’s over 3 miles of hose! 160 sticks of 11/2″ hose! At least 80 sticks of 1″ laterals! As many as 160 depending! And 80/160 gated wyes! Mountainous terrain means a helluva hike to make all those connections – out and back!!
Hauled by dozer or not… that’s an effing gargantuan effort!!!
Awesome job!