Falling Timber in a Wild land fire environment

You're one bad a$$ with a saw Cody..
Nice of you to show some of the "little secrets" used by west coast fallers....

Besides the video / work, what's life like working those fires??? Or maybe another way to put it... how miserable were those 47 days?

Thanks....
 
Thanks Pard :) As far as the life? Long days! Breathing lots of dust, smoke and ash...some days you bust your but , some days you don't have much to do...they kind of offset :) Saw some cool stuff, and met lot's of cool people...even picked up some tree jobs. I will say that it is nice to be home! It is easy to take for granted all the little things like, mommas home cooking, a soft bed, waking up in a warm house, and seeing your loved ones daily. I did it mostly for the money, but I can say I enjoyed it as well, and will be ready for the next bad fire season.
 
I wondered about the dust and ash... I couldn't take it.. the lungs just won't put up with it anymore.. I won't even let them run the blower around me these days.. Not as bad as it used to be though.. there was a time when I wouldn't go near the chipper or stump grinder without a respirator... sucks when you have to work at breathing!... I even wore a respirator in the tree at the worst of it...

When the lungs go, its all over... so many of those firefighters from the WTC are permanently damaged.. Next time you see a man on oxygen, think about wearing a respirator... Might not be practical... at least give up the cigarettes.. That's just plastering all that dust to the lungs with tar...

Every so often I go into coughing fits in the middle of the night and spit out buckets of dark brown crud... it was only after the big one which lasted 45 nights that I could breathe & sing again normally..
 
I had the opportunity to do some fire work from 2000 to 2003. Absolutely awesome work. I only got to go west for one fire but got to spend a few days on that one in front of a shot crew snagging line for them. I had one western larch that was about 20" in diameter and burned out so that there was only an inch of wood holding it up. I put a mini face on it and started to plunge cut fron the hinge back and the Saw Boss started hollering for me to stop. I told him to watch and learn. When it tipped, we got three other burned out trees at the same time. Saw boss said he had never seen that technique before. That trip was the best trip of my life! I only have two wishes concerning fire work. The first is that I would have started doing it 30 years earlier and the second is to jump a fire.
 
That was some good video. Doesn't look like nice stuff to work with. I was hiking just Saturday picking out trees to climb in. It got me thinking of carrying my stuff in and up the steep hills. Just a saddle and some rope. And here you are with a chainsaw and a sledge. Hope your getting some benefits out there. Thanks for posting.
 
Hope you where wearing a full body fire retarding chainsaw resilliant bodysuit???

Just joking my friend!

Only watched the first vid, so awesome man!

Like to see the safe work method statement for that tree!
 
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