QTRA course...

Bermy

Bermy

Acolyte of the short bar
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Just did the QTRA (Qualitative Tree Risk Assessment ) course over the last two days...anybody else done it?

It's going to take me a while to absorb it all...certainly give you a new perspective to assessing and quantifying the risk of harm...when the outcomes result in risk of harm as 1/100,000 up to 1/1,000,000 (of a chance of one person dying in one year from the perceived risk)...is there really any need to do anything at all?
I very much enjoyed the recap and walkabout looking at 'body language of trees' again
 
Congrats on that! We have a Tree Risk Assessment Qualification(TRAQ) offered by ISA. It's over $600 and I'm not sure the cost is justified. I've long suspected that the ISA is more of a revenue generating machine rather than a training institution.
 
Thats the common complaint, my own as well. Fair amount of dough to learn how to fill in a form and use their matrices. Good book to own as a resource though.
 
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  • #5
TRAQ was mentioned and is seen as a more risk based approach...hey, any kind of mechanism to give people a better idea about how much ACTUAL risk they face from trees is good.
Counter move to 'Arborphobia' that kicks in any time a twig bounces off a car...
It was expensive, but at least its tax deductable. There will be an annual licence fee, If I pass the test which is sent to you a few days after the course.
Walking about one of the parks in Hobart, carrying out the system was very interesting, not only for a chance to check out some nice trees, but a few years ago a micro-burst went through there and mashed up a lot of the trees, some of them must be 100 years or more.
It was heartening to see and hear (quite a few of the guys were from the City Council tree unit) how they tidied up the trees, repaired some with bolts and bracing and put others on shorter inspection timeframes...and nothing got cut down. There was even a medium sized beech with Ganoderma, a branch failed two weeks ago, and still, because the risk of it actually hitting anyone or anything is SO low...it remains. :)
 
Bermy said:
It's going to take me a while to absorb it all...certainly give you a new perspective to assessing and quantifying the risk of harm...when the outcomes result in risk of harm as 1/100,000 up to 1/1,000,000 (of a chance of one person dying in one year from the perceived risk)...is there really any need to do anything at all?
Click to expand...

One firefighter I met saw three tree- related civilian deaths in two years.

One was the 8 Y. O. Birthday girl, in front of the family and party guests, playing outside in a windy day.
 
It is good to take a course like that for the simple reason that it makes you think differently.
Besides, you never know what it can lead to.

I've started doing a lot of risk tree assesment for the local State forest.

I find it wastly interesting to diagnose those trees and they pay me good money to do so.
 
SeanKroll said:
One firefighter I met saw three tree- related civilian deaths in two years.

One was the 8 Y. O. Birthday girl, in front of the family and party guests, playing outside in a windy day.
Click to expand...

Yup, the chances might be one in a million but if you are the one... :big-bat:
 
'Bout like the chance of being hit by a falling meteor.

"For civilians" does that mean that military personnel has a larger or smaller risk of being killed by trees?
 
JD3000 said:
Thats the common complaint, my own as well. Fair amount of dough to learn how to fill in a form and use their matrices. Good book to own as a resource though.
Click to expand...

Hey, JD, any chance you could name the title of the book, or better yet, provide a link to a place it can be purchased? For those of us that might be interested in the knowledge, but don't need a certificate.

Thanks, in advance.

Tim
 
Yep Tim, it's ""Tree Risk Assesment Manual" 2nd Edition.

I've been ruminating on the original post where numerical odds were given based on a potential failure. If this was a Qualitative system, rather than a mind bogglingly diffucult and advanced Quantitative system utilizing advanced physics, math, tissue sampling, mycology, etc... how can one present odds of failure and impact with a numerical result?
 
One can't.
All one can do is come up with a reasonable risk assesment on a given tree, based on experience and knowledge.
Then look at the number of people who pass under that tree yearly and decide from that if the tree poses enough of a danger to have to be removed.

At least that is my modus operandi.

Love to hear yours.
 
I have read a lot about QTRA over the years & it only has one feature that I like & that it makes any decision you make legally defensible. No bad thing, but I feel it does limit personal opinion in it's application- I am on the fence about it to be honest.
 
I do a yearly assesment in the park of the Castle where we do a lot of work.
They have 90,000 visitors a year, so lots of traffic under the trees.
3 years ago we had a talk with their insurance company about it.
They said that as long as I do a yearly assesment and submit a written report of whatever I find has to be done, they will chalk any accident involving trees up to " Shit happens" and cover it.
 
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  • #21
pete mctree said:
I have read a lot about QTRA over the years & it only has one feature that I like & that it makes any decision you make legally defensible. No bad thing, but I feel it does limit personal opinion in it's application- I am on the fence about it to be honest.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can understand that. I'm not totally sold just yet.
The section dealing with Probability of Failure is the area where personal knowledge of the trees you deal with comes into it, your understanding of how they grow, how they fail, what defects they can manage, how they respond to pruning, how different decay organisms affect it, local knowledge of wind and weather...that's where the more subjective input is.
I'm still absorbing it all, and I think it has different levels of application in different circumstances. But it is certainly giving me a new way of looking at tree defects and how to deal with them in relation to actual risk of harm.
 
I just signed up for the TRAQ course. With hurricane season approaching, we get a lot of "panic" calls from frightened homeowners wanting to know if their trees are ok. This qualification will give me more knowledge and credibility to provide risk assessments with confidence. Besides, it'll be nice to take 3 days off in the middle of July! 8)
 
I'm planning on this... the classes are rare and spread across the west coast... but I believe it's a good class too.



Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
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  • #24
Wonder how similar the two courses are?
 
Bermy said:
Wonder how similar the two courses are?
Click to expand...

Not too similar. QTRA is more quantified, UK based, guided by HSE thresholds. TRAQ is pretty much US based, and it's mainly about CYA

Both need supplemental experience and training on inspection to transcend their defect-based, defensive modes, and yield defendable opinions.
 
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