Montana Fire Reduction and Reclamation

[mtvigilante]

I am an arborist for a company in montana. My groundman and I are going to go out on our own as the owner wants to retire from trimming and continue spraying.

We will do commercial tree jobs in town, but are wanting to concentrate on doing fire hazard reduction jobs and reclaiming large areas after wildfire near urban areas. This involves a lot of investment and I am willing to take it all the way. The problem is that I am having a hard time figuring out how to market my business and compete with the logging companies. The difference i could offer would be a more environmentally sensitive approach.

I will run my trucks and equipment on bio-diesil and SVO (straight vegetable oil). We will also be using track-mounted chippers and hand crews to ready smaller trees for removal and chip brush. For Removal of marketable timber and smaller trees, we intend on using overhead cable rigs and winches. Chips will be spread for mulch, erosion protection placed, new trees planted, hydroseeding, trailbuilding...all in one whack with tough hand crews and equipment.

Does this approach seem marketable? We will essentially be a forest recycling system, selling excess chips as processed, colored mulch. Selling smaller timber as wood flooring, all run with renewable energy whenever possible.

We want to be a National or Global company, as the only way to change the earth for the better is to reduce CO2 as this can keep large amounts of Carbon in usable products and forest friendly regeneration.

We did a $100,000 job for the company we work for last september, 20 acres of burnt ponderosa. we pulled out about 30-40% of the burnt timber, chipped the brush across the large coulees(30-45* slopes), created waterbars on the hillsides and in the bottom. It took from 6-7 guys about a month, with a skidsteer, vermeer bc1000 chipper, 2 pickups, saws, 300' of 3/8 cable in 3 pieces, and 450' of 3/4 bullrope. It looks like a whole new place!


Is there anyone out there who knows about this kind of work? I really need help with the marketing approach and how to talk to the USDA Forest Service about contracting for their projects.
thanks for listening to the rant of a 25 Year old Climber with big dreams

 

[clearance]

Good for you and good luck. My area (south central B.C.) has a history of fire, a pine beetle disaster and a lot of new development. I can't speak to fire salvage but can about interface danger. Some of this work is being done here, but not enough and not enough support. You want to use a tracked chipper and a cable system, a mini tower setup I guess. I think the priority is to make it safe, cut down the trees that are too close, limb up some, blow the chips on site. I have yet to see a tracked chipper here, hundreds of thousands of dead and dying trees beside houses, powerlines, roads. From looking around on the net I can see that these dangers are being mitigated in the U.S. a lot faster.

 

[smokechase II]

contracting for the USFS

I can't speak to the Forest Service operations in your area.

What we do locally is contract most of the thinning and all of the grapple piling.

Inmates do most of the hand piling.

We, the FS types, do the burning.

We do not like to chip for the most part.
Expensive. That takes away from what we can get down acreage wise.

You'll have to make local contacts there. The contracts can be huge.
Do ask about stewardship possibilities.

 

[gavin]

some people might bite on the environmental angle, but marketing yourself as safe seems the best way to go. especially with post burn areas where they rebound very fast, not sure the environmental angle is really needed. every foresty company i've seen is plastered in 'safety is #1' banners.

 

[slowp]

You need to talk to the Contracting Officer for stewardship projects, who usually handles the contracts for precommercial thinnings, tree planting, etc.
I'm in another region, not Montana. If stewardship is a new thing there, they may have a "how to write and submit a proposal" kind of session for potential bidders. If not, the Contracting Officer (CO) should be able to sit down with you. We found that the loggers had a hard time writing out the proposal, or plan on how they would do the job, so had some training for them. And, sometimes the loggers don't want to do some of the work so will subcontract.
That's about all I know. Hope it helps.

 

[jrizman]

hows the business going?

i guess im about to be your competition, in some aspects.

i plan on getting myself up and running soon. im hoping to take a bit of a different approach, and look at a bit of a different client, but will be doing similar forest restoration and fuels and fire reduction.

I am a forester and arborist, so ive had some good experience in the area and think western MT will be a great market for me.

I am looking at equipment and such right now, but nervous to take out money at this point with the economy. im hoping to have a big job that can take care of my bills for a bit here.

best of luck to you, and if youre in need of forest consulting type work or other such resource management related issues, feel free to contact me.

Thanks,
John