Tree felling vids

cory said:
Nice vid, nice cutting. Cutting smoldering trees is crazy stuff.

Is it beautiful country where you were, excepting the burned stuff of course?

How'd they start, lightening?
Click to expand...

I was on a fire roster as a timber faller all Summer. Got called on 5 different fires. The one in the videos was the Sheep fire, near Lucille, Idaho...very pretty country! Got to cut some fun stuff down...some of the funnest I did not get on camera because there were lots of bosses around and I did not know how they would like me wearing a helmet cam :)
 
Great videos...cool to see how you work.

I have NO idea how you decide which trees to cut sometimes...on fire or if they can help a fire jump a creek makes sense to cut them. Otherwise the ones you fell seem random to me...there is a thought process that your training must have helped you see things I don't.

Thanks for sharing.
 
You pretty much summed it up. Although I fell timber for a good part of my life, and a lot of it salvage logging burns, this was my first Summer on an active fire incident. We were told to fall any snags, green or dead, that fire could get into and potentially cross the line, either by burning out and falling over, or by burning embers flying out of them. Another reason for taking down these trees was they could present hazards to the hand crews who came in after us and back burned.
 
I have done a bit of thinning work where you make an arbitrary decision on which trees stay and which get cut out. Not in burned areas, but in healthy woods. I see it less as a thing one does well with your eyes and brain, than more having developed a feel for it. The folks that have a lot of experience at it, I enjoy looking at their work, they can do a real good job at leaving a nice balance in appearance of trees and open space. There is also the ingredient of which trees can be felled without problems getting hung up. It is a fine set of skills to have.
 
By proper, I meant that any stand thinning should happen under a specific prescription to direct the sawyer. The objectives of the thinning govern the description of what should be removed to meet that prescription. Nothing arbitrary about it in that it's not up to the sawyer to decide what those objectives are, or how to meet them.

But I agree with you, the decision of which individual trees to cut to meet that prescription does indeed fall to the sawyer...some are exceptional at it, and some suck.
 
Most of the stuff we thin, I mark for thinning.
I don't like thinning with the saw, it is too slow IMO. I prefer to run through the stand with a spray can and mark the trees to be cut. That way whoever in our crew falls them, can concentrate on felling them instead of having to multi task.
In tight stands of hardwoods you often have to think ahead quite a bit in order to make room to fall a tree. That is way easier when they have already been marked.

I think the end result is better, too, because when you thin with the saw, you're looking at ease of felling, which interferes with the aim of having a perfectly evenly thinned stand, with the best trees left.
 
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Frequently here the thinning is marked by a specific crew whose sole task is to mark to the prescription. It does speed the felling, and usually gives a better end result.

Stig, you would blanche at the prescriptions the USFS thins to these days...what you describe as "the aim of having a perfectly evenly thinned stand, with the best trees left" is the farthest thing from the objectives as one could imagine, most often. Quit doing it that way at least a decade ago, all in the service of wildlife habitat and water quality.
 
We are trying to produce good quality timber, screw a bunch of wildlife and water:lol:

Actually the state forests are going that way here as well.

They aim to keep producing timber as well, though, so aim for a happy medium between ironmental and timber thinking.

In parts of some of the clear cuts we will be replanting next week we'll plant a mixture of shrubs and bushes ( what is the difference BTW?) to provide habitat for Hazel Dormouse.

Which BTW is a stupid waste of taxpayer money, since the Hazel Dormouse isn't a threatened species, Denmark is just too far north for it to live. We have a small relict population left from warmer times, that the FS spend a lot of money and time trying to preserve, while just south of the border they thrive.
Go figure.
They implemented the Dormouse programme when I worked for the Fs and I protested vehemently.
But, it is small, cute and have baby seal eyes, so there you are.

Oooops, Dormouse derail, sorry.
 
MasterBlaster said:
I've never seen anyone make the backcut lower than the front cut, at least not on purpose.
Click to expand...

Its called a Swedish cut, used a lot for chogging stems down in europe, removes a heck of a lot energy used to move timber sections with the normal step cut way. this way you can aim and drop it of with ease.

Once you have a go you might be kicking yourself for having not used it before (i did when i saw it a few years ago).
 
I use it, but then I'm European, too.
I do it a little different, but basically the same cut.
 
I use it quite frequently. The low "back-cut" lets you cut past where the hinge would be & not have the sawed pulled out of your hands. Limited control so it has it's place.
 
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