State of the Industry, Fall 2021 (BC Tree Planting)

Here we go again.  Viewing season has started in western Canada, with companies looking at contracts for 2022, and submitting bids.  What better time than now to comment on the state of the Canadian reforestation industry?

There are half a dozen main issues that I should comment upon:  Safety, inflation, industry volumes for 2022, tree prices, Covid, forest fires, and the 2021 Heat Wave.

 

Health & Safety

I could write an entire essay just about health & safety, but in the interests of keeping things short, I’ll summarize.  And I’ll address Covid separately.

Fatigue continues to be a problem for the industry.  This is especially apparent at the management level.  While a planter’s day is usually done at dinner, this is rarely the case for management at any level.  Company owners and upper-level managers need to continue trying to avoid letting camp and crew leaders work themselves to exhaustion.

Bear safety has been a regular tailgate topic for many years, but the issue really came into the spotlight at the end of July when a support staff working with a helicopter crew near Whitecourt was killed by a black bear who dragged her away from the staging area during planting operations.  Even though some types of accidents are incredibly rare (such as those relating to danger trees, wildlife attacks, and lightning), the risks cannot be ignored.

New OH&S reg are about to be released in British Columbia.  This may increase the number of OFA3’s that are required in the workplace.  However, this hasn’t been finalized.  If more OFA3's are required, this course will become an increasingly valuable addition to one's resume.

It appears that many companies are putting an increased emphasis on acknowledging mental health issues in the workplace.  Psychological first aid training courses are becoming more common, as is access to professional counselling.  I hope that such resources and initiatives continue to become more common.

 

Inflation

If you hadn’t paid attention, inflation is running hot these days.  You’re probably noticing this at the gas pumps if you’re a driver.  I was seeing prices of over $1.60 per liter in southern BC this week.  Imagine what prices will be next summer, considering that oil prices are expected to continue to rise.  Compare the price per liter with what fuel cost in the 2020 planting season, and you’ll see that fuel costs are going to have jumped by as much as 50% to 80% in a two-year period (admittedly, the prices in 2020 were a bit low due to Covid).  We certainly may see gasoline and diesel at $2/liter or more by the time next year’s planting season rolls around.  The global energy crisis is just starting to be felt in Canada.

Look at food costs.  The global food price indices are up around 30% year-over-year right now, based upon basic food commodity pricing.  But what does that translate to at the grocery store?  Well, various sources are suggesting that grocery prices in Canada are up by about 4-7% overall in 2021, compared to 2020.  And that upward trend is expected to continue.

Supply chain issues are also becoming more of a problem by the month, thanks to dozens of industries either underestimating or overestimating global consumption patterns when Covid was ramping up in 2020.  Right now, it’s almost impossible to buy new ATV’s, side-by-sides, or full-sized pickups.  I bought a new Jeep Wrangler (base model) in 2017 for $26k.  It now has forty thousand kilometers on it, and I could currently sell it for $35k.  One major truck rental agency recently sold all of it’s 2019 trucks.  Why?  Because after renting them in 2019, 2020, and 2021, they were able to sell them for fifteen percent more than they paid for them originally.  A lot of truck parts are also becoming very hard to find, including basics like air filters.  If a truck develops mechanical problems in 2022, it might be stuck at a repair shop for the remainder of the season.  Will planting companies have spare trucks to keep their fleets running?  Anything short of a 350 doesn’t have enough power to carry anything more than crew and a quad.  This is a flashback to the 90’s, but some planters may end up losing days of work due to vehicle downtime.  Vehicle costs (above and beyond fuel costs) are going to rise dramatically in 2022.

Real estate prices are up (not that many planters can afford to buy houses).  Tuition prices are up.  Retail prices are up.  If you’re an Amazon customer, go into your past orders and look at something that you bought 12-24 months ago, and check the current selling price.  Three-quarters of the things that I bought on Amazon in 2019 and 2020 have increased in price by 20-30%.

Wages need to rise to follow inflation.  Will planting companies bid higher this fall?  It’s hard to say.  Many companies that I’ve spoken to hope to factor 5% price increases into bids.  But will they have the resolve to do that?  I guess we’ll know in two months.

 

Industry Volumes for 2022

The Western Forestry Contractors’ Association recently held on online Market Summit.  I was flying at the time, and didn’t have the opportunity to watch the presentations in real time.  However, some of the presentations are online now.  Visit this page to find them:

   https://wfca.ca/2021/10/wfca-rumour-mill-roundupdate-volume-21-issue-12/

British Columbia is allegedly going to have a slight drop in overall planting numbers for 2022, with the total number of trees decreasing by about twenty million seedlings.  This isn’t entirely a bad thing.  It will let the industry catch its breath compared to two back-to-back record years in 2019 and 2020 (which were slightly more than 300 million trees each year).

A decrease of twenty million trees seems like a lot.  However, that’s only a decrease of about 7% from the levels of the past two years.  And considering that there were a number of significant contract extensions this year, and some non-completions, it’s obvious that the industry is still running very much near capacity.  On top of this, the numbers above don’t reflect additional planting that is coming on-stream from other non-traditional sources, such as oil&gas and environmental projects.

I don't want to appear to contradict the WFCA's analysis of future volumes, but they are obliged to rely on solid verifiable data, and that's a weakness.  Their analysis shows a slow decline in volumes for the next several years.  This is understandable, considering the data that they have to work with.  However, I think they're currently forced to neglect two major factors in their analysis:  2021 Wildfires, and the 2021 Heat Wave.  More on these subjects below.

I expect the industry drop in volume for 2022 to be temporary.  Demand will be pushing the limits again in 2023.

Tree Prices

What can planters expect for tree prices in 2022?  Well, in theory, we’d like to see slight increases, to counter the effects of general price inflation.  Unfortunately though, I think we’ll see that pricing will remain stagnant.  I’d like to think otherwise, but I’m being realistic here.

Most of the industry participants (planting company owners and upper management) understand the need to increase bid prices due to inflation.  Most participants know that Covid costs are not included in this year’s numbers, and unlike last year, needed to be added on top of bid prices.  Most participants are involved in broad discussions (such as the recent WFCA Market Summit), and know that they as a group are responsible for the fiscal health of the entire planting industry.

In 2021, the average bid price on all of the “easy” northern Interior government contracts last year was 48.73 cents per tree.  But there was also an automatic 8.6% added onto these [camp-based] contracts for Covid costs, so the true bid price was around 52.92 cents per tree.  If 5% inflation (and a component for Covid) is added this year, then one would hope that the winning bids for northern Interior work average out to around 55.4 cents.  If bids are lower than this, the bottom line at the planting companies will be what suffers the most.  The ball is in the contractors' court here.  If a company tries to low-ball a few bids then drop planter prices to maintain profitability, they will lose planters to competitors.  The labour market is very tight these days.

 

Covid

I can say with complete certainty that we’re all getting pretty sick of hearing about Covid by now.  And yet, people are still dying, so we can’t ignore it.  In the coming months, company owners will have to make tough decisions about operating parameters for 2022.  For the past two seasons, the camp-based companies made the decision to keep planters in camp on days off, but also to provide meals and laundry services on those days.  Will companies continue to absorb those costs if bid prices don’t support the cost?  Or will planters be free to go to town again?  And if that’s the case, how many cases of Covid will come back to the camps with them?  At least three major companies started to let their planters travel into the local communities in July of this year, and subsequently had to deal with Covid cases among their crews (this was in addition to the two other companies that had Covid outbreaks in the spring).  We want our freedom, but we also want safety.  Where is the balance?

Vaccinations will also be a hot topic in the coming months.  Company owners have also been discussing this issue.  My belief is that a lot of companies will require all employees to be double-vaccinated in 2022 as a condition of employment.  The vast majority of planters are already vaccinated anyway, so this mandate wouldn’t bother most people in that subset of the workforce.  Many planters have said that they’d prefer for their workforces to be 100% vaccinated, because that will presumably grant greater freedoms.

Planters who are not and do not wish to be vaccinated will be vocal in their frustration about these policies.  Some planting companies may specifically decide against vaccination policies, in hopes of capturing a larger group of [non-vaccinated] experienced planters who are looking for new homes.  It will be interesting to see what happens.  Considering that the majority of current cases are among unvaccinated people, will any vaccinated planter want to work at a company that doesn’t require vaccinations?  In theory, the risk of Covid outbreaks will be significantly higher at those companies.

 

Forest Fires

The wildfire season is essentially over.  After two record-breaking fire years in 2017 and 2018, British Columbia saw two very quiet years in 2019 and 2020.  But 2021 was another bad year.  By September 30^th, approximately 868,000 hectares had burned throughout the province, which is more than twenty times the wildfire land base of the previous two years put together (2019 and 2020 combined only saw 36,000 Ha burned).

The past few years have seen improvements for tree planters in comparison to historical earnings from the previous decade.  This was solely due to the 2017/2018 wildfire activity.  There was strong demand for planters, as the forest industry and the province tried to fix some of the damage from the massive wildfires of those two years.  That work will continue in 2022 and beyond.

Many people assume that planting of areas burned by wildfires can happen within days or weeks.  That’s not the case.  Post-fire reforestation is very complicated, with complex timelines.  For the next several months, foresters are going to be assessing the damage in their regions.  Long-term planning starts to happen.  Budget decisions need to happen, to figure out where to find money to restore burned forests.  A lot of that funding originates from government, which typically doesn’t move as fast as industry.  However, there is one other significant delay – procurement of seedlings.  Canada’s nurseries are operating near capacity.  Even when nurseries have space to grow trees, seed must be allocated, and then the seedlings need to be grown.  All of this takes a lot of time.  Although a bit of 2021’s burned ground will undoubtedly be planted in 2022, most of the planting really won’t start in earnest until the spring of 2023.  I expect to see record-breaking volumes in 2023, if the nurseries can supply enough seedlings.

 

Heat Wave

This is a story that hasn't been discussed widely as of late, perhaps because it's such a sad story.  The heat wave appears to have caused widespread seedling mortality.  Actually, "widespread mortality" is a strong understatement.  The western Canadian heat wave in late June and early July killed an incredible number of seedlings throughout BC and Alberta.  I've visited several plantations this week where not a single [2021] seedling survived, not even the trees hidden in the shade.  There was nothing wrong with the stock or with the planting quality.  The heat (and several weeks without appreciable moisture in the soil) just toasted them.  I'll post a photo at the bottom of this essay to show an example of a fir seedling that was perfectly planted behind a large obstacle (northeast side), and perfectly protected from the hot southwest afternoon sun.  However, it didn't survive.  Nor did any of the hundreds of thousands of other trees (multiple species) on the same block.

I'm hearing similar reports from several parts of BC and even into northern Alberta.  I've never seen anything like this.  It's incredibly disheartening.  I don't think the industry has ever experienced anything like this.  I hope I'm overestimating, but it may be that more than 25% of the trees planted this year have experienced cataclysmic failure.  With over 400 million seedlings planted in Western Canada this year, more than a hundred million may have died in the heat wave.  It's going to take years for some regions to recover from this.  And again, depending on funding, this is one more reason why the industry will need to run at full speed in 2023 and beyond.

 

Conclusions

After two record-setting years, it probably wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have a “normal” busy year.  Fatigue continues to be an issue for the industry (especially on the management side), and a lot of owners and camp supervisors would be happy to have a less challenging season in 2022.  Despite this, the number of trees to be planted is still very high by historical standards.  Let’s hope that everyone gets a lot of rest this winter.

I'll update this post in February 2022, to reflect upon the results of the fall 2021 bidding season.

- Scooter

www.replant-environmental.ca

Links to Previous "State Of The Industry" Posts:

Spring 2021:  https://jonathan-scooter-clark.blogspot.com/2021/04/state-of-industry-2021.html

Fall 2019:  https://jonathan-scooter-clark.blogspot.com/2019/09/state-of-industry-2019-bc-tree-planting.html

Fall 2018:  https://jonathan-scooter-clark.blogspot.com/2018/09/state-of-industry-british-columbia-tree.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chain Saw Reference Material

Let me preface by stating that reading through this post and watching the linked videos is still no substitute for taking a proper chainsaw training & safety course from a certified trainer.  While I can offer some commentary and basic information in this post, you shouldn't consider this to be a proper substitute for proper hands-on training with a competent instructor.

If you're involved in forestry work, chances are high that you'll find it convenient to use a chain saw at some point.  Obviously, if you're working in the harvesting side of the industry, running a saw will probably be part of your daily routine, even in an industry dominated by heavy equipment.  However, even if you're doing tree planting, timber cruising work, surveying, or road building, it's always a good idea to have a saw in the truck for when you come across a tree that has fallen across the road.  If you're not employed in the forest industry, you may still find a chain saw to be very useful for work around your back yard or at a cottage.

Husqvarna and Stihl are probably the most well known pair of chainsaw brand.  Many people who use one or the other swear by the brand they use as being the best.  I don't subscribe to that notion.  Husky and Stihl are both great brands.  Personally, I own half a dozen Stihl saws, but I think Husqvarna also makes excellent saws and I've happily used Husqvarna equipment many times in the past.  Other common chain saw brands include Jonsered, Oregon, Homelite, Echo, Craftsman, Makita, Portland, Toro, and Milwaukee.  I also own a DeWalt electric arborist chain saw with a 12" bar, which I use for some small jobs.  A few years ago I would have laughed at the idea of owning an electric saw.  However, having tried out the DeWalt, I find that it's excellent for certain quick tasks around the yard, or for when I'm up in a tree.

Basic Safety

 

I'm going to work through five key areas (in point form) to share a bunch of safety tips:

  Use the Correct Saw

- Gasoline or electric?  There are advantages and disadvantages to both.  For forestry work, you're certainly going to want a gas engine.  However, although I always used to think that electric chain saws were a joke, I've been using one recently for certain small jobs around the house, and although I would never use one in the bush, I have a new respect for it.  Match your tool to the job that you're doing.

- Large CC (engine displacement size) and large weight, or small CC's and weight?  Smaller saws are frequently designed for more casual off-and-on work.  Larger saws are generally designed to be run hard for full days.

- Length of bar?  16" is standard for homeowner saws, although 12" or 14" is common for some arborist or electric saws.  Fallers in most parts of Canada use bars of 18" to 24".  Longer bars are available for areas with big wood.

- What is your experience level?  A smaller and lighter saw with a shorter bar is most appropriate for new users.

- What is your physical build and strength?  Even if you're an extremely strong and muscular faller, you shouldn't necessarily grab the biggest saw you can lift.  If you're cutting for very long, your arms will start to tire, and your safety risk becomes exponentially higher.

- What are you cutting?  Don't use a tiny casual-use yard saw for 24" trees.  Conversely, a large saw may not be appropriate for pecker poles or brush.

- How long will you be using the saw?  If you're cutting firewood for an hour, a light "homeowner" saw will be fine.  If you're using the saw for a few hours each day, a "farm and ranch" model may be best.  If you're running the saw for extended periods with high power requirements, you'll want one of the "professional" models.  Light homeowner saws are not intended to be run for hours at a time.

 

  Wear PPE

- Personal Protective Equipment is incredibly important.  I see lots of videos online with people cutting in jeans or shorts, or without safety glasses.  Having seen some of the ways that a saw can react unexpectedly, I know that it's just a matter of time until these people are seriously injured.  Using a chain saw without proper PPE is about as stupid as driving at high speed on a busy two-lane while texting on your phone without a seatbelt on.  Eventually, the odds are going to work against you.  I put on safety gear even to quickly cut a single tree that has fallen across a logging road.

- You need a hard hat for overhead protection.  Sometimes, when you're cutting a tree, a branch can shake loose and land on you.  Imagine a "small" sixty pound branch hitting you in the head from a 40-foot drop.  Make sure your hard hat is fitted properly.

- Eye protection is absolutely necessary.  Your hardhat should have a faller's shield as a first defense to protect you from larger projectiles, and you should wear goggles or safety glasses underneath the shield to protect your eyes from the wood chips that will constantly bounce up behind your shield.  How comfortable will you be trying to drive to the hospital with a large splinter embedded in one eye?

- Kevlar pants will keep you from losing a leg.  Kevlar is a type of material with long ballistic nylon fibers embedded within in.  If a running chain saw comes into contact, the material starts to cut, but then the fibers are supposed to bind up in the chain and sprocket of the saw (choking it and stopping the chain).  In practice, this doesn't happen instantly, so there's still a risk of a minor injury if you nick yourself.  But the injury would be a fraction of the severity compared to what would have happened if you were wearing jeans.  A sharp professional saw can cut though an unprotected human limb to the bone in less than a second.

- On the subject of pants, a lot of people wear chain saw chaps that fasten over your work pants, rather than full wrap-around pants.  I highly recommend against wearing chaps.  Although they protect the front of your legs, which is the most likely area to cut yourself, it's still possible to injure yourself on the sides of your legs.  Wrap-around pants are much safer.  I believe that WorkSafe has banned the use of chaps in many jurisdictions, for good reason.  Be aware that Kevlar doesn't work as well at stopping an electric chain saw motor, but it's still the best safety option.

- For footwear, leather work boots are not enough.  You need a pair of chain saw boots of some type, which feature Kevlar protection to keep you from cutting off your foot.  I always put Kevlar boots on, even for just a couple quick cuts in the back yard.  You can take it a bit further.  If you're working on uneven ground in the bush, you should strongly consider chain saw boots with "caulk" attachments.  Caulks are metal spikes which dig into the ground and give you extremely secure footing.  Do a google search on "viking black tusk caulks" to see one type.

- Gloves are useful.  When limbing, you'll have to stop the saw frequently to pull brush out of the way.  Even if you think your hands are tough enough that you don't care about getting poked by splinters and sharp corners, you'll probably want to avoid getting pitch or resin all over your hands, since it's so sticky.

- Some people overlook hearing protection!  Your handhat should have mounts for ear muffs.  You can also wear earplugs underneath the muffs to really protect your ears in the long run.

- Don't forget a safety whistle, so you can catch the attention of someone working nearby.  Also, I usually wear a radio harness chest pack to carry my phone (screen toward chest).  It's less likely that you'll damage your phone there than in other pockets.

 

  Saw Maintenance

- At the start of each day, give your saw a careful examination before starting to work.

- Examine your chain carefully.  With the saw turned off and the chain brake disengaged, check that the links appear to be in good condition, that none of the teeth look broken or dangerous, and that the chain spins properly on the bar.

- Check your chain tension at the beginning of the day when the chain is "cold."  Your chain should be tight enough that as you "pull" it away from the center of the bar, it only comes out about a centimeter or so.  Any looser, and it is more likely to come off the saw.  Any tighter, and you're going to have more friction, plus your chain won't spin as fast and therefore your saw won't cut as well.  Chains expand once they heat up, so you may want to stop the saw after 10 minutes of use and re-check your tension.  Also, a new chain stretches quite a bit in the first hour or two of use, so you'll probably want to quickly check the tension every fifteen minutes or so after starting to use a new chain.

- Clean out the guide on your bar that the chain links travel though.  This should be whisked out once per day, or any time that you feel that your chain isn't spinning freely.  To check the chain for this, turn the saw off and put it down on the ground, then disengage the chain brake, and try spinning the chain by hand.

- Know how to sharpen your chain properly, and keep it sharp.  That's a complicated topic that is explained in dozens of online tutorials.

- Make sure your fuel is mixed properly.  Chain saws have two-stroke engines, so they need to use "mixed" fuel.  Typically, the ratio is 50 parts of gasoline to 1 part of "two-stroke oil" or "mix oil," so the ratio of oil is quite small.  However, the presence of mix oil is critical, as it lubricates the piston within the cylinder.  If your fuel mix is too rich (too much oil), your saw will chug and die because the spark plug is unhappy.  If your fuel mix is too light (not enough oil), your piston will heat up due to increased friction, and it will eventually start to expand and score the inside of your cylinder wall.  The piston might even seize within the cylinder, then you'll need a new saw.  Two-stroke oil is typically a dark bluish-green, so your mixed fuel will have a slight blue-green tinge to it.

- Make sure you have "chain oil" or "bar oil" in the oil reservoir.  This oil does not mix with the gasoline or lubricate the engine.  Instead, it lubricates the inside of the bar, so your chain spins more smoothly and there is less friction and less heating up.  Your chain oil and mix oil are completely different products, and should not be substituted for each other.  Chain oil typically comes in a couple different weights.  Light or winter-weight oil is fairly thin (low viscosity), and works well in the cold of winter.  Medium or heavy oil is fairly thick, and works well when the saw is quite hot in the summer.  Chain oil is frequently dyed red, partly to distinguish it from mix oil, and partly to make it easier to see as you're double checking the lubrication on the bar.  Some of the Stihl chain oils don't have that red dye, which I find somewhat annoying.  By the way, you can get vegetable-based bar oil, which is much better for the environment than traditional oil.

- Make sure that your chain oil is feeding properly.  Sawdust can build up and block the channels where oil flows out of the reservoir and onto the chain.

- Make sure your air filter is clean.  You should brush it off probably a few times during the course of a day of cutting.  Clean it out with soapy water at the end of the day then let it air dry for best performance.

-  Once you've done a complete examination of the saw, start it and let it run for thirty seconds or so.  Test that the chain brake works to stop the chain.  If it doesn't work, do not operate the saw until you get it fixed.  If you notice that the chain break stops working during the day, stop cutting and get your equipment fixed.

- Incidentally, once you start cutting, check your fuel level frequently.  You should probably never allow the fuel level to get below a third of a tank.  This is because you should never walk away from a partially cut tree.  It is the operator's responsibility to ensure that every time you start a new tree, you have enough fuel in the saw to complete that tree.

  Safe Operation

- Know the different types of cuts used to safely fall a tree.  Make a plan for your tree before you start to cut.

- Plan two escape routes from every tree.  Your two escape routes should each be away from the intended direction of fall.  Ideally, each should be 45 degrees off the axis extending directly backward from the tree's direction of fall.  Use your saw to cut out any brush that could trip you up as you walk away via your escape routes, and take a minute to pick up and move any larger obstacles, such as branches or pieces of logs.  For reference, your escape paths aren't just a precaution.  You will always use one of your two escape routes to walk away as soon as you see that your tree is starting to fall.

- Before starting to cut a piece of wood on the ground (whether clearing or bucking), assess for tension and compression.  Any piece of wood that is under tension and compression will probably require two cuts, one on each side.  By understanding the tension and compression, you will know whether the top or bottom must be cut first.

- Make sure you're in a good stance, with your feet spread apart and body standing in a comfortable position, before you throttle up.  If you feel that you are not well braced when cutting, stop the saw and re-position your feet and body.

- If you're about to shift position or move, get in the habit of engaging the chain brake before even lifting a foot.  It is much easier to trip while moving than while standing still.  If your chain is stopped and you engage the brake before you move, you're at a much lower risk level of falling onto your saw.  As strange as this sounds, it can be pretty easy to fall and land on your saw, especially when you're wearing heavy protective gear with restricted visibility.  You will frequently find yourself shifting position on uneven terrain which has significant trip hazards.  It is especially easy to lose your footing while limbing a downed tree.

- Understand the physics of the saw's reactions to cutting with different parts of the bar.  The saw will react differently when cutting with the top of the bar, versus the underside of the bar, versus the lower tip.  Be aware that if the upper tip of your bar comes into contact with anything while the chain is running, you're liable to experience "kickback" - another incredibly dangerous hazard.  Please learn about kickback, and always be aware of where the tip of your bar is.  Never cut something that is "out of sight."

- Always hold the saw in such a manner that if you experience unexpected kickback, the saw will spin in an arc that won't hit you.  Hold the saw off to the side of your body.  If you can see the bar perfectly "edge on" while cutting, your position or stance or saw placement is very dangerous.

- Always hold the saw in such a manner that when you fall, your left forearm will automatically hit and engage the chain brake.

- When limbing a tree on the ground, work your way from the butt to the top along the "left" side of the tree.  This is the inherently safest position due to the "right hand" design of all chain saws.  Incidentally, there is no such thing as a "left-handed" version of a chain saw.  You'll always find that the cutting bar is on the right side of the saw.  If you're left-handed, your safest bet is to learn to hold and operate the saw the same way that a right-handed person does.

- Never cut above shoulder height.  For the first few months you're learning to use the saw, do not cut above waist height.

- If you're tired or the saw feels heavy, do not cut above waist height.

- Never cut two trees at a time (even on the ground), or two branches at a time.

- Never cut while standing on a ladder or unstable platform.  When people are cutting branches above shoulder height, the only safe option is to bring in the correct equipment (a special type of saw called a pole saw).

- Watch out for "spring poles," which are small trees that are bent over but not broken.  These are under tension and can easily surprise a faller.

- Deciduous trees (especially alder) are more prone to barber chair than conifers.  In many cases, deciduous trees are the most dangerous types of trees to fall (other than compromised trees and danger trees).

 

  Hazard Checks

- Before approaching a tree that you intend to fall, scan for hazards.  In particular, look carefully at the tree, scanning for problems such as a dead top, dead branches or widow-makers.  If you're working near civilization, consider the potential for nearby lines and wires.

- Look for rot.  You may see visible signs, such as cracks or cavities.  You may see missing bark, and stem wood that is especially dry.  Conks or similar types of fungal growth on the trunk of a standing tree are a sign of likely rot within.
- Look at the trees around your target tree, and look for branch entanglement with other trees.  Never start to cut an entangled tree unless you are highly experienced and know the appropriate methods to control the hazard.

- Look for other danger trees in the area that could fall onto your tree as you're working.

- Look at your footing.  If there is brush and vegetation, clear it away.  If there are loose rocks, you'll need to assess whether your footing will be sufficiently secure.

- Assess the tree for lean.  It is easiest to cut a tree the direction that it naturally wants to fall.  Although there are ways to make a tree fall in the opposite direction from the natural lean, this only works for slight leans, and this type of a situation is significantly more dangerous.  Unless you have a lot of experience, don't try to cut against the natural lean.  Unless you have a lot of experience, don't try to swing trees as you're falling them.  If the tree isn't going to fall in the direction that you want, and you don't have the option of using ropes or heavy machinery to assist you, don't touch the tree in the first place.  Walk away.

- Look at the slope.  Cutting on a slope is significantly more dangerous than cutting on flat ground.  You will want to cut the tree so it falls down-slope, for safety.  Cutting a tree uphill is dangerous, as the tree can roll or slide or bounce back at you as it is falling, or after it hits the ground.  Never stand downslope or below a tree that you're cutting.  Always finish your work from the uphill side.

- Know your species.  Some species are especially prone to barber-chair, which is extremely dangerous.  I know of people who have been killed by trees that barber-chaired on them.  Aspens and poplars can be risky.  Alders are especially dangerous.  If you don't know how to cut this type of tree safely, leave it to an expert, since a specialized falling approach is required.

- Check the wind.  Don't work in heavy winds.  Don't fall trees into wind, since a gust can pick up your tree and bring it over backwards.

 

 

Falling a Tree

 

There are a lot of different ways to fall a tree, and in this section I'll try to describe the basics of how to do it safely.

 

The traditional approach is to start by cutting out a piece of the tree in the direction that you want the tree to fall, then to cut it from behind.  The front cut is generally two or more distinct cuts that remove a piece or pieces from the side of the tree in the direction in which you want the tree to fall.  The part that is removed is called the face or notch.  After you've cut out your notch, the tree should not fall down yet!  If so, you've done it incorrectly.  The notch generally only goes to a depth of one-quarter to one-third the diameter of the tree.

 

Once you've made a notch, your back-cut is a single horizontal cut which is typically intended to be aimed at a point approximately 1 to 2 inches above the deepest part of your notch.  Your back-cut is the cut that causes the tree to start falling.

When done properly, you will end up with an uncut band of tree trunk between the notch and the deepest part of your back-cut.  This strip of holding wood is called the hinge.  Ideally, your hinge is of equal depth on both sides.  Here's a graphic to illustrate some of these concepts:

I don't particularly like this graphic for a couple reasons.  First, it says that the notch is about one-fifth of the diameter of the truck.  However, that label is not correct.  You can confirm visually that the depth of the notch in this illustration is about one-third the diameter of the tree.  That makes sense.  I'll clarify that there are occasionally times when a very shallow (and tall) notch of 20% of the diameter makes sense, and there are times when a very deep notch (>40%) makes sense.  But those are for special situations which we're not going to explore here.  Another thing that I dislike about this graphic is that it looks like the back-cut is sloping downward slightly, which should not be necessary.

 

Wedges can (and should) be used as a precaution to keep your back-cut open, so the trunk doesn't settle back and close on the bar of your saw.  This shouldn't happen in the first place if you are cutting properly, but sometimes a tree will surprise you.  Wedges are also used to force a tree over if you've completed your notch and back-cut, but the tree is still standing.  Wedges are easier to use in larger trees than in smaller trees, since there may not be room to put a wedge into the back-cut of a smaller tree without the tip hitting the bar/chain of your saw.  Instead of going into detail about the use of wedges here, I'll save that for the video tutorials you can find further below.  Just remember that it is always smart to carry an axe and several plastic wedges while falling.  Also, never wedge a dead or rotten tree.

Your notch can be one of three types:  Humbolt, Conventional, or Open-Faced.

 

The Humbolt notch should be open to an angle of about 45 degrees, with the top of the notch extending horizontally into the truck, and the bottom coming up into the trunk at that 45 degree angle.

The Conventional notch is the opposite of a Humbolt, ie. the bottom of the notch is cut horizontal into the trunk, and the top is angled down into the trunk at a 45 degree angle.

The Open-Faced notch is sort of a combination of both Humbolt and Conventional.  You may also hear it referred to as a V notch or Swing notch.  This notch extends into the tree both "down from above" and "up from below," with the two cuts meeting perfectly.  The total width of this notch is frequently up to 90 degrees, although some fallers will cut it slightly narrower (say 70 degrees).  Take a look at this graphic to get a better understanding:

If you look carefully at these three examples, you'll notice that the back-cut is always horizontal.  You'll also notice that the back-cut does not always aim at a point exactly an inch above the deepest part of your notch.  The back-cut on a Humbolt notch should aim to stop on the other side of the hinge at a point which is an inch above the deepest point of the notch.  The back-cut on a Conventional should be slightly more than that, perhaps closer to 2 inches above the deepest part of the notch.  It is only the Open-Faced notch which gets a back-cut that is basically aimed at the back of the notch.

 

The upper and lower face of your notch should meet perfectly along the entire back of the notch.  If either cut goes too far on either side, the overcut is called a Dutchman.  A Dutchman destabilizes your hinge, and reduces or eliminates the ability of the hinge to control the direction of fall.  This is very dangerous.  If you create a Dutchman, you'll need to make your notch larger to clean it out and eliminate the Dutchman.  But you don't want to make your notch too deep, which is also dangerous.  If you're starting to think that falling a tree safely requires a lot of skill, you're correct.

I want to really emphasize something here, once again.  You should NEVER allow your saw to sever the hinge.  If your back-cut goes too deep and cuts the hinge, the upper part of your tree is no longer attached to the stump.  This is an incredibly dangerous situation.  Instead of falling in a controlled manner with the hinge dictating the direction of fall, your tree will go wherever gravity takes it.  And that isn't always where you want it to go.

You should leave at least 10% of the diameter of the tree for your hinge, or "holding wood."  Here's a graphic from Husqvarna illustrating this concept:

Different types of notches have different pros and cons.  An Open-Faced cut may be the safest and most commonly used cut for beginners.  In certain types of situations, it is the safest cut even for an experienced faller.  However, among professionals, the Humbolt is viewed by many of my friends as the safest cut.  This is not to say that the Conventional notch should always be avoided.  I'd estimate that when I'm cutting, I probably use the Humbolt notch on about 95% of the trees, the Conventional notch on about 5% of the trees, and the Open-Faced notch very rarely, perhaps only one or two trees out of a thousand.

A Humbolt (or Open-Faced) notch does a better job of letting the butt of the falling tree slide down the stump as it starts to fall, so the butt hits the ground before the top of the tree.  In my personal opinion, this is safer and causes less damage to the tree.  With a conventional cut, the butt is held in the air by the stump as the tree is falling, so the top part of the tree hits the ground before the butt.  On a high stump, this may be slightly less safe, and may cause more damage to the tree when it impacts the ground.  Of course, you should always use one of your escape routes to quickly walk away from the tree as it starts to fall, so you should never have to worry if the butt kicks back toward you as the tree lands.

When cutting commercial timber, a Humbolt gives you a few extra inches of prime usable wood at the butt of your largest piece, unless the Humbolt forced you to cut higher on the trunk.  You often lose a few inches of commercial wood when you use a Conventional notch.  I'm almost never cutting for commercial value, therefore, I don't avoid using Conventional notches based upon economic reasons.  A professional logger would more likely be motivated to avoid Conventional notches.

There are other types of specialty notches and falling techniques, such as gap-faced notches, and cutting slits or sub-notches from one side of a larger notch to affect tension and swing a tree slightly as it falls.  There are also techniques for falling trees that are leaning in the wrong direction, although this is only possible to a somewhat small extent, unless you want to bring in ropes or other equipment.

Until you've had proper training and months of cutting experience, you should stick to the basic three notches.

 

 

Video Resources

Here are a few basic chainsaw use & maintenance videos from Husquavarna.  If you own a different brand of saw, they are still worth watching:

 

Here's a basic chainsaw use & maintenance video from Stihl.  Again, this is worth watching even if you don't own a Stihl:

 

The US Agricultural Safety & Health Centers has a pair of good basic safety videos:

 

 

 Here are the links to WorkSafeBC's entire series of faller safety videos.  They're quite good, and I watch the entire series again every winter as a reminder about safety, because I spend a lot of time cutting each year.  I'll list these seventeen videos as links rather than as embedded videos, to save bandwidth for people reading through this post:

01 - Introduction (5:57)

02 - Stretching (8:18)

03 - Saw Maintenance (11:49)

04 - Using the Saw (6:01)

05 - Site Assessment (2:10)

06 - Preparing to Fall (3:41)

07 - Thick Bark (1:22)

08 - Undercuts (21:23)

09 - Wedging (10:55)

10 - Falling Small Trees (20:28)

11 - Slope (5:57)

12 - Heavy Lean (9:51)

13 - Falling Hazards (37:43)

14 - Winter Falling (13:37)

15 - Limbing (7:47)

16 - Kickbacks (2:04)

17 - Bucking (17:32)

The guys in this next video are entertaining, and they share some good information.  I find that they didn't always explain the entire rationale for what they were doing before they went ahead and started cutting, but if you already know the basics, you'll probably learn a few things from this video.  The only thing that really bothers me about this video is that some of the operators are not using chain saw pants, safety glasses, or hard hats with face shields.

That's all for now.  If you're just about to start working with an instructor, I'd recommend that you watch the videos in this post and then re-read all my safety comments before you begin your training.  However, even though reading and watching videos is an excellent way to start learning, there's no substitute for one-on-one instruction with a qualified, certified instructor.  Training courses with certified instructors don't come cheap, but they're a hell of a lot cheaper than cutting off a limb or allowing a tree to flatten you.  I go through and re-watch all of these videos at the start of each winter to help remind myself about best practices & techniques, and I typically spend 80-100 days cutting each winter.

Good luck, and be safe.

InReach Devices (Satellite Based Texting)

It’s been interesting to see advances in technology in tree planting over the past decade, with the proliferation of smart phones and other powerful mobile devices.  Various apps such as Avenza, Dropbox, GeoCam, and CamScanner have revolutionized the way that we find blocks, and improved our processing of paperwork and maps.  However, although there has been a small amount of progress during this same time frame in terms of communications capabilities (slight expansions of cellular grids), most aspects of communication haven’t changed.  For instance, we’re still using the same old VHF radios that were used since the modern tree planting industry began in the 1970’s.


Due to the relatively recent advent of satellites designed for consumer communications, satellite phones have become more ubiquitous.  The GlobalStar satellite network was unreliable for several years, which was a significant concern with respect to relying on that network for safety-related or emergency communications.  The Iridium network seemed to work quite well (and still does), but using a satellite phone on either of these networks is pricy.  However, there’s a “new” kid on the block, which has already become indispensable to a number of planting companies:  InReach devices.

An InReach is a device that is a stand-alone handheld satellite-based GPS device, but it also has the ability to send very simple messages via a separate satellite system (it uses the Iridium satellite network).  For those of you in the central British Columbia area, the two main models of InReach that I'm aware of are currently priced at $480 (Garmin InReach SE+) and $549 (Garmin InReach Explorer+) at IRL in Prince George.  I also checked the prices at GPS Central in Calgary, where the SE+ was cheaper than IRL, and the Explorer+ was more expensive than IRL.  Of course, those prices are just for the devices, but you still need a subscription to use them.  There’s also a new budget version InReach Mini, although I haven’t played with this model yet.  Incidentally, the InReach devices were originally created by a company called DeLorme, but DeLorme was acquired by Garmin in 2016.

A very basic subscription called the “Safety Plan” is around $20 per month ($15/month if you lock in an annual contract).  It's useless except for emergencies.  The medium plan is called the “Recreational Plan” and it costs $45 per month ($35/month if you lock in an annual contract).  Again, this mid-tier plan is not much good unless you're very careful with your communications.  The top tier is called the “Expedition Plan.”  If you’re a serious user, this is the plan for you.  It costs $80 per month ($65/month if you lock in an annual contract), and it's fantastic because it allows unlimited texts.  The two lower-end plans charge $1.25 per text, which would quickly become prohibitive if you were using the device to its full capabilities.

As noted, there are discounts on annual plans.  An annual plan may not be suitable for everyone, but that’s ok because you don't have to lock in for twelve months.  For tree planters in Canada, it makes sense to turn our subscriptions on at the start of the season, and once the season ends a few months later, we turn the subscriptions back off.  For more information on rate plans in Canada, visit:
https://explore.garmin.com/en-CA/inreach

For communication, it is possible to input a simple text message via the device, although that approach is quite slow and painful (and I don’t think the InReach Mini has this capability).  The InReach then transmits your message via satellite, so you don’t need to be within cell range to use it.  It sends up to 160 characters per message, just text.  No graphics or anything like that, so it’s similar to SMS messaging (not MMS).  If the device is sitting out in the open and talking to the satellites, I find that it usually sends and receives within 10-15 seconds, so you can actually have a functional conversation.  My InReach devices rarely take more than a full minute to send or receive, unless I’m really blocked in by mountains or trees.  Line of sight to the sky definitely helps improve response time.

The best thing is that you can interface any of the InReach devices with any smart phone via Bluetooth.  This lets you do your text sending/receiving using the keypad on your phone, which is obviously so much faster than punching it in on the InReach itself.  The only drawback is that it is still the InReach device which does the sending/receiving.  So if I have a friend out on a block with no cell service, and I’m in town, when I text him/her (using my regular texting app on my phone), I have to remember to send the text to his/her device's phone number rather than to the personal cell number.  To be safe, if I’m not sure where he is, I often send the message to both numbers at the same time.  You get used to this very quickly.

Imagine this situation:  You’re a supervisor who is taking a couple of crews out to plant a couple of helicopter blocks.  There is no cell service at Staging, and no cell service on the blocks, so everyones’ cell phones are useless.  Even worse, the blocks are four kilometers away from Staging, on the wrong side of a mountain, so the handhelds aren’t strong enough to talk to the person back at Staging (we almost always have someone on standby at Staging for the full duration of any helicopter operations, to help facilitate regular operations such as loading or unloading slings, and to be on standby to assist in the case of a first aid emergency).  In this type of situation, the InReach devices are incredibly valuable.  The foremen on the block and the supervisor at Staging can communicate easily, all day long, via satellite text messages.  Helicopters are expensive, and any “wrong moves” (inefficiencies) can be quite costly when you sign the flight ticket at the end of the day.  An InReach device can sometimes pay for itself in one day when running helicopter operations.  I’ve had days where I’ve been supervising over fifty planters spread out across six or seven blocks, with two A-Stars in the air for the entire day, and no VHF handheld communication capabilities between the blocks and Staging.  On days like that, I’ll often end up sending and receiving as many as four to five hundred texts during the day, keeping on top of what’s happening everywhere, so you can quickly see how essential it is to be able to remain in constant communication.  And if you’re curious about the cost of running such an operation, the helicopter time for a day like that can approach forty thousand dollars.

Incidentally, the InReach devices are very easy on their batteries.  It takes several days to run the battery down from a full charge.  However, your smart phone may not be so lucky, especially since you’ll presumably be outside of cell coverage, so your phone burns through extra battery capacity very quickly trying to search for a cell connection every minute or so.  There are two ways to mitigate this.  The first is to go to Airplane mode, then turn Bluetooth back on.  The device can then talk to the InReach via Bluetooth even though it’s still in airplane mode and not trying to sniff a cell signal.  A second useful idea is to bring a “power bank” charger, so you can top up your smart phone (and InReach) batteries while on the block.  If you aren’t familiar with power bank chargers, watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8-55E7eUec

As a small side benefit, you can set your InReach device up for tracking as long as you're on the $75/month plan.  It does this at no extra cost, sending out a ping once every ten minutes that communicates the location and speed of the device.  I can keep my InReach on the dash of my truck for weeks at a time, and any time someone in the office wonders where I am, they just log in to a special URL that I give them, and they can see my location on a map (and how fast I'm moving).  It would be really helpful if I was ever in an accident and went missing, because they could just look for the last ping to narrow down the search.  Apparently, there’s a new high-end subscription plan (the “Extreme Plan” for $125/month) that sends tracking pings every 2 minutes, although most organizations/individuals would be fine with the “Expedition” plan.

One potential drawback (for some people) is that the InReach apparently won't accept a text unless it is from a number with which it has already started a conversation.  I presume that this is to eliminate spam texts.  This might be a problem for some people though.  For example, when working with no cell service near Alexis Creek, I told everyone in my camp to give my InReach number to their parents/friends in case there was ever a serious emergency and someone needed to get in touch with them quickly.  However, since I had never texted any of those people with my InReach first, if anyone had tried to send a message, I wouldn't have reached it.  This issue can be circumvented by testing your messaging capabilities in advance, with key people that you might want to receive a text from.

All in all, an InReach seems to be an expensive device for a company (around five hundred dollars per device, plus about three hundred dollars for the Expedition subscription for four months), but this cost is very much worth it for tree planting companies working in remote locations where there’s no cell coverage.

After all, you can’t put a price on safety.

Assessment and Mitigation of Fire-Damaged Stands

The 2017 wildfire year was a devastating one for British Columbia.  Although 2018 has ultimately turned out to be even worse, it is the results of the 2017 fires that are currently starting to impact BC's tree planting industry.

In 2017, approximately 1.2 million hectares burned.  The majority of the ground that burned did so in July and August.  Although projects began to be tendered in September and October of 2017, for planting projects that would take place in the spring/summer of 2018, those projects generally did not address ground that was burned in 2017.  Certainly, a few contractors saw some burned ground, but that was only because ground that had already been prescribed for 2018 planting happened to burn.  The projects were not yet intended to target the 2017 devastation in a general sense.

Fast forward to this year, and there are significant projects coming down the pipeline right now which will cover ground burned in 2017.  In some cases, foresters are re-planting blocks that were planted in 2016 and 2017, as those are often the easiest to start with (for a number of reasons that I won't list here).  An example of a contract such as this can be found in BCTS Williams Lake district.  Many of the blocks in the northern part of that region (south of the Clisbako River, up the 4600 road) are ones that my camp originally planted in 2016.  For the most part, that series of blocks burned completely, and not a tree survived.  Nor did the duff and upper organic layers of the soil.

In other cases, foresters are targeting blocks that have become fairly well established, and are close to their free growing date (ie. around twenty years old).  In these blocks, the plantations have reached heights of twelve to twenty feet or greater, and were becoming very healthy stands until the fire hit them.  An example of a contract such as this would be either of the pair of MOF Kamloops projects up the Scottie Creek FSR (north of Cache Creek), and up the Battle FSR (north of Big Sky).  Incidentally, Evergreen is planting one of those MOF contracts, and A&G Reforestation is planting the other.


The contracts that I've mentioned above are probably just the very tip of the iceberg with respect to what's coming later this fall, and what we'll be seeing for the next several years.  As if the 2017 fire wasn't bad enough (with some government estimates suggesting that the industry would have to plant 200,000 hectares over the next decade just to mitigate 2017 damage), this year turned out to be another record-breaking year, which is simply going to make matters far worse for the next several years.  To be honest, I don't think BC has the capacity to ever repair all of the wildfire damage from last year and this year, but that's another story which needs to consider nursery capacities, labour supply/demand shortfalls, and other issues.


The reason that I'm bringing all of this up is due to the safety issues relating to fire-damaged stands.  There exists a danger to any workers within such stands, due to unstable burned trees (danger trees).  Now to be perfectly clear (in case my mother reads this), I think there are more serious dangers out there.  I believe that the risk to any tree planter of sustaining serious injuries or a fatality is many times more likely to be the result of a vehicular incident, not having a tree fall on you.  But having said that, it doesn't mean that we should disregard the issue of danger trees in wildfire stands.  We are not completely free of risk.

In my mind, the problem with these stands lays in determining how to assess the danger trees within the stands.  Within BC, there is a specific certification that forestry workers can obtain, called the Danger Tree Assessor certification.  To obtain this certification, the participant must attend a two-day training course and pass both a written exam and a field exam.  I've received this certification twice (the certificate expires after four years), and I found that it was a fairly comprehensive course.  You have to be quite intelligent and be paying close attention in order to pass the course.  In other words, it's not a superficial course.  I should also point out that there are different varieties of Danger Tree Assessor certification, aimed at either forest harvesting and silviculture, wildland fire safety, or parks and recreation personnel.


When a certified Danger Tree Assessor enters a stand to assess problems within the stand, there are going to be a lot of questions about how dangerous a given tree must be in order to be considered "dangerous."  Some trees will be found to be unquestionably of no significant risk to workers in the stand.  Other trees will be found to pose definite problems, and will have to be addressed through methods such as flagging off a no-work-zone, or having a professional faller come into to drop the tree.  Trees in either of those categories are not a problem, in my mind, because their status is clear.  However, there may be many other trees within the same stand that fall into the "grey zone" between those two extremes.  Trying to decide if those trees are dangerous enough to require further mitigation is the issue that many people will be trying to grapple with.

On the one hand, looking at things from the point-of-view of a planting contractor, the preferred situation would be to be told that most of the trees are not dangerous.  If the trees are considered to be dangerous and have to be dropped, two problems are created:  Fallers need to be hired to come into the stand with chain saws, to fall all of the problem trees.  Planters then have a harder time planting the stand, because they have to crawl across all the dropped trees (and there may be additional eye-poke hazards).  This slows them down and reduces their earnings.  Both of these problems ultimately turn out to be expensive for a planting contractor.  Of course, there are also problems if the trees are not dropped.  What happens if one actually falls over and injuries a worker while the planting is taking place?  The odds may be very low, but it's not a negligible risk.

Looking at the situation from a different point of view, one wonders if cutting down hundreds of thousands of potentially dangerous burned mature trees could pose a safety risk to the fallers.  Of course it would!  It would be terrible to ask a faller to go into a stand to cut thousands of burned trees, and then to have the faller be injured or killed because a falling tree acted unexpectedly and caused a crush injury.


My understanding of the situation is that the abiding principle to follow is that of "imminent danger." Tree planting is considered to be a low "level of disturbance" (LOD-1) activity in terms of danger tree assessment criteria.  This would be opposed to a high LOD activity such as running machines through the stand for harvesting.  With a low LOD, mitigation efforts are not required to be as strict.

For planting, it may be possible to implement standard working protocols for the stand that depend on external measurement criteria.  For example, it may be possible for workers to plant within the stand as long as the wind does not reach a speed equal to or greater than 40 km/hr.  If the wind speed does get that high, then workers would be required to cease work and evacuate the stand.  I should point out to casual readers that if this seems like a lot of wind, these wildfire stands don't have leaves or needles on the trees anymore (and in many cases, even the branches have burned off), therefore there is less surface area on each tree to catch the wind.  So in other words, it takes a pretty strong wind to really move these burned stick trees.

The principle of imminent danger is intended to avoid cutting too many trees unnecessarily, and therefore reducing the exposure to risk of the workers who are falling the "danger trees."  Ultimately, this means that there is a balance between the risk of a tree falling spontaneously on a planter, versus the risk that the same tree falls on a certified faller during the process of cutting the tree down.

I should point out that the concept of imminent danger may apply to most wildfire stands, but this doesn't mean the same approach can be taken with dealing with danger trees around a temporary planting camp.  In that situation, the exposure is much longer (a period of perhaps weeks under potentially dangerous trees, rather than minutes) and there is more chance during this time period of adverse external events occurring without prior warning (ie. a wind storm that arises in the middle of the night).  The "imminent danger" protocol would therefore not be useful for saying that it's ok for planters to set tents up under potential danger trees.  And by the way, planters should have the common sense not to set tents up under ANY trees that look like they could blown down in a windstorm, regardless of whether or not there was wildfire damage to the tree.  However, common sense can sometimes be anything but common in a planting camp.

To directly quote an associate with whom I conversed about this topic, "It is incumbent on the Clients to make it clear at the viewings what the standards are for assessment, to live up to their due diligence obligation to make bidders aware of the hazards involved in the work."  Of course, in my experience at viewing meetings, the level of due diligence demonstrated by some clients is highly variable.  Some firms are very specific about this topic.  For example, Forsite Forestry Consultants tend to be quite clear about what the hazards are, and what their expectations are pertaining to how the site should be dealt with.  Other clients offer less clarity.

Incidentally, I've heard rumours that in some areas, DTA personnel may be required to wear tracking devices that will show their trails through the block, to ensure that the block was checked thoroughly, and that WorkSafe will then come in to do a follow-up inspection of what was assessed and/or cut.  I'm looking forward to learning more about this new practice.

My personal advice is that if a bidder is not satisfied with the clarity of the information that they have received, they should ask the client specific questions, in writing.  Clear guidance is an important part of the process of due diligence.



My final concern is that some bidders may try to win contracts by "cutting corners" when it comes to stand assessment and, even more particularly, with mitigation of potential dangers.  It would be a shame if such a contractor won a job someday because they didn't budget for proper assessment and treatment of potential danger trees, and a worker was subsequently injured or killed by a falling tree.  In my mind, that would make the both the contractor AND the client complicit in responsibility for the accident.

It would be easy to come up with a solution to this problem, and to level the field for planting contractors:  the client should deal with the stand assessment and mitigation separately, rather than passing the responsibility on to the planting contractor.  In a low-bid system, it simply doesn't make sense for contracts to be set up this way.  If clients ensured that a separate firm took care of DTA assessment and danger tree mitigation from a separate funding source, there would be no risk of cost-cutting contractors gaining a competitive advantage to the detriment of the long-term safety of their employees.


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Here's a link to a WorkSafeBC publication about Danger Tree Management:
http://www.replant.ca/docs/Danger_Tree_Management_Worksafe.pdf