On a 1,180-acre county park/preserve (Betasso Preserve) across the fence from my home, a fire-mitigation-thinning operation in Ponderosa Pine woods is nearing completion. It’s a $1.3 million heli-logging show creating fuel breaks on three areas totaling 189 acres, through 50—80% fuel reduction. As you can imagine, certain neighbors have expressed doubts & concerns—the contract is managed by Boulder County, whose ways don’t always inspire confidence.
As my full-time gig is 95% fire mitigation for homeowners, I’ve been in favor of this thing. The thinned ground next door to me is now far less likely to bring fire to my place. (My main question was heli-logging?—why not skidders? We have sandy gravel for soil, ground that you can’t hurt with wheeled traffic. But I don’t manage county parks and open space.)
The block adjacent to my place was slated for 80% thinning, and a week or two before work started I finally saw tape (no paint) on trees. The specs were that nothing over 18” DBH would be removed, so county forestry techs put pink DO NOT CUT ribbons on several of the larger trees, and also pink-taped a few of what I call “character” trees—odd, misshapen, or whatever. But that seemed backwards to me. In my work—small-scale of course, compared to this project—everything I cut is marked with blue paint. When I studied forestry (as an amateur, in the 1970s), I seem to remember the saying: "You don’t choose trees with a saw in your hand." Foresters do the selection beforehand, not sawyers. So my question is: has this changed? Is it typical to let production sawyers drop trees and expect they’ll get the ratio right? These guys moved quickly—I never saw a sawyer study or survey the area. They dropped trees like they were getting paid by the piece.
Overall, I’ll be happy with the work. (Although when the saws cranked up next door I watched a sawyer casually cut the pink tape off my favorite “character tree” and fell it. I went up and fussed a little.) But I truly am curious. I know that marking with a paint can is an imperfect science ‘cause it can be hard to visualize the result. Is it common to allow sawyers to choose?
As my full-time gig is 95% fire mitigation for homeowners, I’ve been in favor of this thing. The thinned ground next door to me is now far less likely to bring fire to my place. (My main question was heli-logging?—why not skidders? We have sandy gravel for soil, ground that you can’t hurt with wheeled traffic. But I don’t manage county parks and open space.)
The block adjacent to my place was slated for 80% thinning, and a week or two before work started I finally saw tape (no paint) on trees. The specs were that nothing over 18” DBH would be removed, so county forestry techs put pink DO NOT CUT ribbons on several of the larger trees, and also pink-taped a few of what I call “character” trees—odd, misshapen, or whatever. But that seemed backwards to me. In my work—small-scale of course, compared to this project—everything I cut is marked with blue paint. When I studied forestry (as an amateur, in the 1970s), I seem to remember the saying: "You don’t choose trees with a saw in your hand." Foresters do the selection beforehand, not sawyers. So my question is: has this changed? Is it typical to let production sawyers drop trees and expect they’ll get the ratio right? These guys moved quickly—I never saw a sawyer study or survey the area. They dropped trees like they were getting paid by the piece.
Overall, I’ll be happy with the work. (Although when the saws cranked up next door I watched a sawyer casually cut the pink tape off my favorite “character tree” and fell it. I went up and fussed a little.) But I truly am curious. I know that marking with a paint can is an imperfect science ‘cause it can be hard to visualize the result. Is it common to allow sawyers to choose?