A Heavy Equipment Operator’s Perspective on What You Need to Know When Working Around His Machine
[This is the “One of Our Own” feature that originally appeared in the 2025 Two More Chains Winter Issue.]
In this conversation between Erin Hurley, Operations Manager (detailed) with the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center, and Alan Kirby, Engineering Equipment Operator on the Ocala National Forest in Florida, Alan shares his important insights and lessons on heavy equipment operations.
Erin: Hi Alan, thank you for agreeing to meet with me. Ultimately, we wanted to interview you because of your experience as a heavy equipment operator; we want that representation.
Working with the U.S. Forest Service and with other agencies it’s beneficial to capture what kind of career people have had that are outside of the “normal” line firefighter who often gets highlighted in the national and mass media news.
Alan: Yes, especially here in the Southeast, the tractor plow is a primary firefighting tool.
Erin: Tell me a little bit more about your current job.
Alan: I’m currently the Engineering Equipment Operator in fire on the Ocala National Forest. I started my career in 1998 with the Florida Forest Service. I worked for that agency for eight years and then got a job in 2006 with the U.S. Forest Service here on the Ocala as an Equipment Operator. I then did a six-year stint as an engine captain from 2009 to 2015. In 2015, I went back to the dozer.
Erin: Did you always know that you wanted to go into fire/land management?
Alan: I joined the Marine Corps instead of going to college. When I got out of the Marine Corps, I wasn’t sure what direction I was going to go. Like a lot of veterans, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I went to an employment office and realized there was a job called a “forest ranger.” I was like, that job is all me!
To encompass everything that interests me, even as a kid, I was very active in the Future Farmers of America (FFA). I was also on the FFA’s Forestry Team from the 8th grade all the way through the 12th grade. I always had a passion for forestry and forest management, even as a kid. When I was 13 years old I knew what a “chain” land measurement was.
Erin: I love that. Sometimes things just work out and you find yourself in a career that you have always had a passion for.
Alan: Yeah, we learned in the FFA Forestry Team things like land estimation, compass reading, dendrology and just basic forest management practices. I still have that knowledge and use it today, dendrology especially. It has just stuck with me. I really enjoyed it.
It was tough trying to get a job because I was just a Marine Corps veteran. That’s all I had as far as a background. I was trying to get on with the state of Florida with no fire experience at all. I was working as a corrections officer right when I got out of the Marine Corps, but the whole time I was pursuing the forest ranger job. I finally got on with the state as a forest ranger and haven't looked back. So, this past October, it’s been 26 years that I’ve been a wildland firefighter.
Erin: Oh my gosh, that’s a great story. Tell me a bit more about your career—qualifications, favorite experiences?
Alan: The whole time I’ve always been a qualified tractor plow operator. Even when I was an engine captain. The Ocala National Forest would rely on me to operate the dozer and fill in here and there as a dozer operator. Just because of my equipment operator experience.
Tractor Plow Tactics
Erin: Can you walk me through what your job entails as a heavy equipment operator in the Southeast? I know dozers are used very differently in the western states, where I have fought most of my fires.
Alan: So, obviously, we do a lot of prescribed burning here. I’d say a lot of the hours and use that we put on the tractor plow units are for prep work, putting in pre-suppression lines.
So, we’ll pull disk or blade line in preparation for prescribed burning, as well as for initial attack purposes. More specifically for the Ocala National Forest, when we’re prescribed burning, you must have a piece of earth-moving equipment on scene to be authorized to do these burns.
We therefore must have the equipment just to do the burning even if it’s just staged. And then we will also utilize the heavy equipment for holding purposes and patrol and monitoring.
Erin: I see.
Alan: Tractor plows are the primary firefighting tool in the Southeast. The vegetation is so thick and dense in Florida. We’re a pine forest, but the understory and the vegetation is very hard to navigate. Even for just a walkthrough. Because of this, the plow that we pull behind the dozer, it pulls a fireline. Most people see it and don’t know what it is—it looks like a ditch. That ditch is the fire break. By using the plow, the rate of speed for production rates of building fireline is so much faster than if we just used the blade like Western states do. It’d be so slow, we wouldn't catch the fires.
Erin: Tell me more about the tactics with a tractor plow.
Alan: We’re doing direct attack on most of our fires. But, after we get the fire contained, we’ll turn around or blade the firelines out. Mostly for patrol monitoring mop-up purposes for UTVs.
What’s Your Most Memorable Experience/Favorite Memory?
Erin: Over the last 26 years, what are some of your most memorable experiences or favorite memories?
Alan: You know, being able to go out of state as a tractor plow operator is very enjoyable. That’s something that you don’t get to do all the time. The summer before last I spent a month and a half in Texas. I took my equipment out there and I really enjoyed that. Large fires are always memorable, but you don’t often get to take your own equipment off your Forest.
I went out as Division and I came back and I did another roll as a Line Safety. I like that diversity. I don’t always have to be on the dozer. I enjoy doing other assignments that I’m qualified for. It’s always challenging. I love the challenge, like being a Division.
Erin: It’s great having a challenge. I imagine you know a lot of folks that are line qualified as single resources, but do not have heavy equipment qualification as an actual operator. How do you think that helps you with the rest of your firefighting qualifications?
Alan: It definitely helps, especially when I’m out there as a Division. I understand not just the capabilities of the equipment—what they can do—but I also understand what they can’t do. That’s very important for a Division Supervisor to understand. I’m not gonna ask them to do something that they can't do. And even though I do have some of that understanding, I'm still talking to the heavy equipment bosses and the operators and seeing what they feel comfortable with. Because there’s always that element to operations—some operators feel more comfortable doing certain things versus others.
How Can We Do Better at Mitigating Heavy Equipment-Related Incidents?
Erin: On the last page of our Lessons Learned Center’s (LLC) 2024 Incident Review Summary, we feature the past 20 years of heavy equipment-related incidents. Travis Dotson, the LLC’s Analyst, has put some prompts on this page for folks to think about heavy equipment use and operating that focuses on how you can improve risk management related to heavy equipment operations.
You said that as a Division you are thinking about their capabilities and what they can and can’t do in talking to the operator and the heavy equipment boss. But what are some things that you run into as a heavy equipment operator when you’re given operational objectives from folks that don’t quite understand. What could we do better to mitigate some of some of the risk?
Alan: Here’s one of the things that I run into here on the Ocala and you probably also see this in other places. I kind of preach and nag on this all the time. I feel, especially here in the Southeast, folks get real comfortable being around dozers and they get too close. So, this is how I explain this risk to these folks that I work with.
I tell them: “Assume I’m the most dangerous equipment operator you have ever met. Do not get near me because when I’m out there operating, the visibility is very limited inside the dozer. In trying to look out through the cage, because of the forestry protection package, plus the potential vegetation, I can’t see you very well. So don’t get near me.”
Erin: Mm-hmm, that’s always a good reminder.
Alan: And people tend to walk up to me and get near the dozer because they feel comfortable because they’ve been around it. I get nervous if I’m initial attacking a fire because we don’t have heavy equipment bosses with us. We operate here in the South by ourselves. If I shove a tree on top of somebody, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself—even if I knew that it wasn’t my fault.
Erin: Yeah, that’s gonna ruin many people’s day. That is a great reminder of working on and around heavy equipment, especially for those of us who may go on assignment in an area that heavily utilizes initial attack-qualified dozer operators and tractor plow operators because it’s not common in some areas.
Speaking of incidents involving heavy equipment, in the Incident Review Summary Travis also informed that in the past 20 years, rollovers have made up 58% of all reported heavy equipment incidents. And in the past 20 years in the Eastern half of the country, 50% of all entrapments involved tractor plows. Those are big numbers for a resource that is not as ubiquitous as say, you know, an engine.
Just hearing these percentages over the last 20 years, which has been most of your career, what are your thoughts?
Alan: That statistic with the 50% of the entrapments doesn’t surprise me. Because, like I said, we are the primary firefighting tool in the South or even in the East, even in the northern Midwest, in Michigan.
The rollover number surprises me a bit, but that includes the West. Terrain is probably involved. It’s difficult when we’re out there by ourselves. Where’s our LCES? Who is our lookout? Usually, our escape route and safety zone is the line that we’re dragging behind us because we are direct attacking. Kind of like the rule with handcrews. You only build as much line as you can hold. For tractor plows, we must double back to get out. If we’re lucky, we have someone in the air for a lookout.
Erin: Yeah, it’s so different from what it’s like when you’re on a crew or when you’re in the West and have an actual lookout perched up on a high point to be able to give you updates on what’s going on.
Alan: Exactly. I just feel like that’s the struggle. The operators out there by themselves trying to do a lot of things on their own. You’re the primary person for everything.
Erin: Thank you so much for your time and sharing your experiences this morning. You have brought important perspective and things for our readers to think about when operating around heavy equipment.