Trees on nice Car. Who is to blame?

[turnkey4099]

Worked several days on the "School" fire(Pomeroy, WA). The local forest wanted to get homeowners in to assess damage ASAP when they deemed it was safe. Which they deemed way to early, but politics is politics. Sooo, they gang-banged the fire with fallers to clear access roads of hazard trees. Good idea, but in my opinion they moved too fast. Road control was almost non-existant in a few areas. NOT because we didn't try. Folks that have been tossed out of their homes and not allowed back for a couple weeks are "antsy" to say the least. They'd run our roadblocks if nobody was standing there to stop em'. That was the fastest moving fire I've ever been associated with. On the steepest terrain I've ever worked. From, and I'm not sure of the exact acreage, four hundred acres to twelve thousand in 24 hours. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Northern Blue Mtns. and the Palouse. The local cop I talked with who was given the task of leading the evacuation told me they had an HOUR to evacuate a few hundred households scattered over several miles of switchback roads.
He didn't sleep for days. He wasn't able to get to all of the houses in time the fire moved so fast. He knew for certain folks burned. 147 houses, and many outbuildings were consumed. Luckily, NO lives were lost.
Anyway, that fire taught me "road-control" if nothing else. The ground was so steep and rocky(small loose rocks)many snags felled uphill went like bobsleds into the road. We were lucky on more than one occasion. Folks ignoring roadblocks and moving barricades would just plow ahead, hell bent on leather to see what was left of their homesteads. Manned barricades proved to be the only answer, and then it was tough.

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I am about 60 miles bee-line distance across the Snake river from there. It got pretty smoky over here several times To say it is rugged territory doesn’t do it justice. That country is wicked. My closest neighbor has a cabin over there and managed to salvage everything. As it turned out, his was one of the few cabins that survived.

The School Fire, Pomeroy Washington.
(Per report in today’s Spokesman Review (www. spokesmanreview.com the regional section)).

The joint report by state and federal investigation:

Burned: 52,000 acres, 215 buildings
Cause: A dead 52 foot tall ponderosa pine the blew over onto a power line.
Cost: 15 million (doesn’t count the value of lost timber and buildings)
Cost recovery: DNR asking for 3.7 million from the Columbia Rural Electric Association.
US Forest Service hasn’t decided yet if it will ask for reimbursement
Private landowners making a class action suit against the power co.
Asplundh had contract to maintain ROW and is named in the suit.
At fault:
Per the report: The local power for not removing a snag on ROW
Per Power Company: Not our fault, the tree was beyond the 20 ft ROW by at least 10’

State/Fed claim. The tree was 17 ft from the center line, had been beetle killed 4 to 7 years prior to the fire and should have been seen.. Power Company claims the tree was dead only 1 or 2 years and would not have been seen

Looks like a lawyers dream.

Harry K

 

[JJackson]

As a utility we will take out dead trees as far back from the lines as they are tall. But not sure if it's our responsibility or not if something like that falls, my boss does not want to be responsible for a large expensive fire. At least we would inform the owner that they have a hazard that needs to be taken care of or it could come back to bite them. could have been a forest service tree, they were always making it hard even to remove a dead tree, but I am sure if the forest lights up they will be quick to point the finger at the utility.

 

[clearance]

Tree falls on transmission line, causes fire. Asplundh and the utility run for cover, -it wasn't our fault, never is. Lawyers dream is right, I could spend the rest of my life cutting down snags around trans. lines, I guess our utility is lucky, this rarely happens here, roll the dice.....

 

[sawn_penn]

These photos came to me from a California USFS employee.
The Tahoe NF has been mentioned.
The Gumment takes a bow.
Apparently we did it.
No report yet.
I'm not sure, but the major issue here may be road control.
I'm just glad the damage was apparently confined to the vehicle.

I'm flattered that my friends on arboristsite would think I did it.
Actually, I've never acquired the skills to "lead" a vehicle correctly and connect. Thanks for your vote of confidence guys.

On the subject of stuff ups, we dropped part of a tree badly at a place called "The Lodge" down here in Australia. Smashed a $$$ alarm system and a fence.

Doesn't sound too bad until you realise that "The Lodge" is kinda our version of the Whitehouse.

Yes, the guvment had a hand in that one too.

Anyone else want to come clean on the stuff that isn't in your resume?

 

[rmihalek]

Were those trees already across the road and the lady shown in picture 4 decided to try to drive under them?

There's no way that a falling tree of that size would make about a 3 inch dent in the top of that car (and not even shatter the wind shield) because if you look in picture 4 when the tree is removed, there's just a little indentation in the roof.

Maybe the trees were falling but hitting the up hill side of the road stopped them?

 

[sawn_penn]

I'd thought that maybe the car had come around the corner and slid to a stop under the tree. Otherwise they were pretty lucky about the size of the dent.