Falling a fire killed Incense Cedar 2004

[FSburt]

Following photos were taken in summer of 2004 when my crew and I were falling fire killed timber for reforestation purposes. This is a incense cedar that is hollow and 40+" dbh. We are using 24" bars. I really enjoyed working with my crew during this time because this was my last year as a foreman on the crew and we got to fall some pretty big wood over the course of the summer. I was able to teach my guys alot during the season. We put in alot of trigger time about 500+ hours during the season which is alot time these days for a FS crew we are one of the few crew left in CA that do this kind of work anymore so the time spent cutting is invaluable experience these guys would not get anywheere else in the Govt. Most of my guys leave their 2nd year and became sawyers on shot crews.
The person in the red hard hat is me and the person doing the cutting is one of my crewman. This was the biggest and the hairiest trees he had ever tackled but he did an excellent job throughout. This tree leaned downhill fairly hard so we bored the back and left a small strap at the back to trip the cut and it worked well. Also notice how we did not take the undercut out in one piece but ripped it in half and dealt with it in 2 sections. Enjoy the photos and am open to any comments.

 

[smokechase II]

cedar

That fire appears to be cold.

 

[FSburt]

hey bill we were cutting this area 3 yrs after the fire went through here. It was the North Fork fire that burned in August of 2001. We had to end up falling some big timber because the EA got held up and most of the timber went bad so the Mills did not want to bid on the volume so we fell it and piled and burned it up. Sad shame I believe we had 5-7 million feet that we had to let go to waste because of this.

 

[smokechase II]

planning and the courts

It's far more dangerous in the office around here than in the field under a fire killed tree. Planning folks have a high stress fruitless thankless job.

The craziest thing is happening on a neighboring piece of federal land.

1) This particular area has had an incredible recent large fire history. They have more snags available for wildlife than any other place on the planet, (only a slight exaggeration).

2) We get direction and funding to deal with hazard/danger trees next to roads.

3) The wildlife people fight this hazard tree removal.

On our district, we had a 22 mile stretch of paved road where we were questioned about dropping around 25 larger, dead Pondos next to the road.
(One guy did screw up and dropped one across a fence)

But we actually have it good compared to elsewhere. Our head wildlife guy approved the removal of a 45" dbh Pondo that had an Osprey nest in the top of it. Tree was a serious risk, again next to a paved road with a lot of recreation use nearby. We monitored the tree this last fall, avoiding not just the nesting season but any chance use of the nest.

 

[Onelick]

North Fork Fire

Hey FSBurt,
If you are talking about the fire just south of Bass Lake, I spent some time on that fire cutting a huge 10 ft wide line with 40 foot canopy width fire break. but it didn't even make it close to there. Beautiful country though.
Onelick

 

[FSburt]

North Fork fire

yea onelick that is the fire. That line you guys put in just made it through the NEPA process for maintanence activities such as cutting the brush back and keeping open for future access when the next fire comes through. I'll take some pics of what it looks like now and post them. I'm sure you had some good memories of being on that piece of dirt. The ridge you guys went down has not burned since 1931 so that is why the manzanita was over 20 ft tall.

 

[Onelick]

North Fork Fire Break

FSBurt,
Here's the best pic that I have of that fire break.
Onelick

 

[FSburt]

Cool picture. Too bad all that hard work had to get rehabed and covered back up. How many saws did you guys have punching in the saw line. We usually run 4-6 saws through that big stuff with most of the crew pulling since the scrape is usually easy to put in.

 

[Onelick]

Burt,
We were the scrapes. There was group of contract fallers out ahead of us with a crew from Ohio swamping for them, and then us doing the scraping. Since they were so far out ahead of us, I'm not sure how many saws they had.
Onelick