FS fallers

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Now back to sawdogs. Do you use them much for small wood?

Dogs make bucking logs a little easier (and more fun) no matter what the size. Straighter cuts imo.

When I used to own a 310 I'd find that the end of the logs would tend to look like Gumby's head when the chain started to get dull.

1 dog on the inside, no outer.

Hope that answers your question. If not see attached document.

 

[2dogs]

Dang FS fallers! SC, that you?

 

[slowp]

Maybe they got a new Chevy pickup and it didn't have enough clearance to get anywhere plus it had 2 ply tires and the fleet people wouldn't listen so they took care of it!

Actually, that was sent around on the intranet as a safety message to watch out where you park at fires. I think it is the one where a tree burned through and clobbered the rig just after they'd gotten out to look at something.

 

[Burvol]

Back to the original question of running dogs. Back in my cut and skid days in small/medium timber, we ran no dogs on our 70cc saws,just got in the way when limbing. With a properly sharpened chain the saw sucks into the tree while falling anyways. We had a Swede instructor from Husqvarna demonstrate the 6 point limbing technique to our crew once. With no dogs on his 266 he was pretty amazing in handling that saw. But then we realized loggers in Sweden are paid by the hour and we in Canada only worked piecework. Our 6 point technique was backblading the tree's limbs with the skidder and clipping the stray limbs and then the top with the saw.
Today in my tree service jobs I always run dogs, different kind of work.

I think we determined that back in your days, the timber was small as hell, and I bet dogs would get in the way of an 18" bar! That is rich!

 

[Bushler]

I worked on a fire years ago, falling snags. One of the FS dignitaries took me out on a road where a big loose bark snag was burning...he wanted me to fall it. I told him nooooooo. Then he tried to get me to let him fall it with my saw...I again said noooooooo.

While we were arguing over who was in charge of what, the snag shed its bark, (burning bark) and clearly would have buried him and my saw had I allowed him to continue.

He was pretty quiet on the ride back to camp.

 

[smokechase II]

Kitson Fire

Smashed vehicle wasn't me.

What I did hear was that they had just parked.
Heard the cracking and spliting noises that were very loud.
Just barely saving their own ass they became 20 years younger and more mobile.

Another vehicle had just left that area moments before.

Sorry excuse for a government employee if you ask me.
Not throwing themselves on their rig to protect taxpayer dollars from a little western oregon fir.

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Kitson fire was near oakridge oregon just a couple weeks back.

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Trivia;
never have hit a pard, outhouse, vehicle, picnic table, power line or septic field. Yet.
Got 11 working days until retirement then everyone is safe.

 

[2dogs]

Trivia;
never have hit a pard, outhouse, vehicle, picnic table, power line or septic field. Yet.
Got 11 working days until retirement then everyone is safe.

Well with Collyfornia on fire again maybe the FS will send you down here for some fun before you hang it all up.

 

[Ivan H.]

I'm just woundering why they didn't hear the saws running? THat's a good way to get smashed

 

[slowp]

I'm just woundering why they didn't hear the saws running? THat's a good way to get smashed

NO SAWS were involved. The tree, like trees do when burned, fell on its own accord, like trees do in fires, and hit the rig. Unfortunately, I've seen this happen to a crewperson on the line. I think they were ok. The tree fell and it looked like the branches grazed the person, but it was enough to sent them summersaulting down the hill. We immediately were told to go ahead and dig line in the young plantation instead of along the burning old growth, and then we torched or blacked out the plantation that was inside the line.

I've worked at night--wouldn't do it now, and was scared most of the time cuz snags were falling around us and we could hear them but couldn't see them. No saws needed.

 

[Gologit]

Well with Collyfornia on fire again maybe the FS will send you down here for some fun before you hang it all up.

Send him over here. We're back on Red Flag days again.

 

[2dogs]

Yep, the crew was shut down the last two days.

 

[tek9tim]

Smashed vehicle wasn't me.

What I did hear was that they had just parked.
Heard the cracking and spliting noises that were very loud.
Just barely saving their own ass they became 20 years younger and more mobile.

Another vehicle had just left that area moments before.

I can't seem to find much more info than this...

Anybody have any insider info as to how active the fire was when it happened? Had to have been dang near down to the patrol stage by then, everything else in the northwest was. Anybody have any idea what the guy's quals were? I bring this up with all due respect, I just got curious since most regular fire folks don't usually drive Explorers.

Pretty interesting, one thing I read did say that the tree had been previously determined to be sound enough to leave standing. I'll happily stand up to accusations of being a sport faller in exchange for never feeling the guilt of passing up a tree that was within my skill level that ends up killing somebody.

 

[2dogs]

I stole the image from here.

http://wildlandfire.com/

 

[tek9tim]

I stole the image from here.

http://wildlandfire.com/

Yeah, everything I can find on it seems to have the same paragraph of info that came out right after it happened. Seems to be the case every time anything happens in fire. An email gets sent out to all FS employees, a little later the same info gets released to the press, there are tons of questions that everybody has about it, but the full story rarely seems to get released.

 

[slowp]

Here's what we got with that picture on our E-Mail. I will not include names.

Hi all. Just passing along a sobering reminder about how quickly and how badly (could have been a lot worse) being in the wrong place at the wrong time on a wildfire can be.

Blank Blank poses atop what's left of his vehicle after a fire weakened Douglas Fir broke off and fell onto the road where he and another firefighter had just parked to check out some of the fire. They heard the tree crack as they stepped out and ran hard to get away. This was truly a close call. Another vehicle had pulled away from this spot a few seconds before.

This is on the Kitson Fire, on the Willamette National Forest. It happened about 4:30 PM on September 26, 2008.