Several years ago the county did a massive fuel-reduction project on the forest preserve that I back up to. Very cool job.
No trees were marked, the sawyers did "prescription cutting," dropping trees to achieve a certain reduced stand per acre. Post felling, a locator would stand next to each downed tree with a bright pom-pom-looking thing (think cheerleaders), waving it to guide the chopper operator. Chopper would lower its line, guy on the ground would snake the choker around the tree, and tree would fly away to the landing. Very cool. I quit work early one day to see the operation next to my property.
Only thing I didn't like was there was a really cool, partly dead pine up the hill from my fence that I really liked, had birds nesting in the dead portion. (In a world of countless pines, I value any unusual "character tree.") That tree was wrapped with pink "DO NOT CUT" tape, and I watched the sawyer walk up to it and drop it. I walked up there and said basically, WTF? He was Mexican, claimed he didn't understand English. I made a small fuss, brought it to the attention of the county guy running the show. But I got over it. Felt halfway bad later for maybe causing grief for the sawyer.
But that area now looks very good. Much less likely to bring fire raging to my place.
