Yeah, the “twice the distance as the tree is tall” rule is a good one, but it doesn’t fit all situations. Again, you had to have been there. The “OSHA” rule puts the feller in charge of the actual safety zone, unless the felling requires a team effort:
“No employee shall approach a feller closer than two tree lengths of trees being felled until the feller has acknowledged that it is safe to do so, unless the employer demonstrates that a team of employees is necessary to manually fell a particular tree.”
The standing rule of approach (unknowingly to me) for my children (and wife) is to never approach when the saw is running. If the saw is running they are to stay on the trail, or if the tractor and trailer are parked on the trail they are not to go past it. When the saw is shut down they should vocally let me know of their presence.
If I am aware of their presence, they are to stay in an area (or out of an area) designated by me until the saw is shut down, and/or until the tree has stopped moving when felling. (This rule has been modified after this instance; they will now wait until I vocally OK any movement into, or out of an area.)
This particular tree was standing next to one of my side trails, thirty-some feet from the main “road” in the woodlot. After evaluating the tree, the lean and the underbrush, and as the feller (and father) fully aware of possible dangers (my main concern was “kickback” when the tree fell into the others) I determined that the safest place for my son (reasonably, and where I could still see him) was to be standing back on the main “road” next to, and slightly behind a large elm tree of about 2.5-feet in diameter. Now, y’all can say the “safest” place would have been back at the house… but I reject that notion, if we try to keep our children absolutely 100 percent free from any danger they would never be allowed to leave moms skirts, and they’d never learn anything about the real world. And he followed the “rules”, moving only after the saw was shut down and the tree had stopped falling… although the that turned out to be temporary; hence the modification of the rule.
And about the “real world”… life in the “real world” means you learn daily; as you grow older experience, and experiences continuously teach you things. I learned, he learned… and we modified one of our “rules of living in the real world” as a result. What’s really funny about some of these replies is that even his mom didn’t get her panties all-bunched-up when he told her about his experience; she just said, “Well, I hope you both learned something today.” Like I said… He ain’t coddled.