New Takedown Method

[Fernhorn]

I just read about this, this morning.

http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20101108/NEWS/311080020

I'm curious, does anyone else takes down trees with explosives? Plus they didn't have enough money to save the trees but they sure as hell got enough to blow em up?!

 

[Blinky]

I don't see why a chainsaw wouldn't have worked.

 

[No_Bivy]

hard to run away in a laurel thicket.....prolly really brittle tops too...

we are all just jealous, it would be fun as hell.

thay did try to save them,

 

[Dan_Watkins]

I agree with blinky, chainsaw has got to be faster. By time you duck tape a charge to the tree and get out of the way, you could have dropped the hemlock with a chainsaw and been dicing the top up. Even if you had some really enthusiastic forest service workers that were running around the tree with tape, I dunno.
Besides, they said the trees that were coming down were the ones that threatened hiking trails. So theirs an escape route close by if not right their. Weird

 

[cerviarborist]

I wonder if perhaps they're just planning to drop them and leave them. Who knows? Maybe they're taking a page from the Oregon DOT Dead Whale Disposal Manual

http://blog.oregonlive.com/multimedia/2009/03/what_not_to_do_with_a_dead_wha.html

 

[Daniel]

Don't knock it til you;ve tried it.. what we all need... duct tape and dynamite... You know that would be fun on some dead tree that the customer waited too long on.. I just wonder if they couldn't have cut the tree, then tripped the fall with dynamitye...seems like that would require a lot less explosives..

I'd like to try it.

 

[southsoundtree]

While working on a project for Nevada Division of Forestry, there were some very large snags that they didn't want to take the risk of felling. They had us build burn piles around the bases of the trees with the fuel reduction wood from other trees in the area. The foresters plan was to close the area,alert local authorities when they were going to burn their piles in the winter, and light 'em up. Let them fall where they may, and burn as much as possible.

The forester figured that they would burn like a huge torch, then at some point, fall. He figured that they would look a bit different that regular burn piles to air traffic. Some of the wood would have been too large to move, and if burning enough, would just create their own burn piles. I didn't get to see the effect.

Worth it or not, I can't say. Safety was their goal. Felling was an option that he declined. Maybe the forester, who looked like the Lorax, sorta, was just a pyro.

 

[Tr33Climb3r]

explosives huh? interesting article thanks for sharing..I just emailed the link to one of my professors to get their take.

 

[Eric_E]

Interesting, not enough money to treat them but enough money to blow them up. I would think the explosives would cost more than Merit.

 

[lumberjackson]

Guymayor just posted about a different article, but same place. it talked about how they wanted to keep the forest looking 'natural' with jagged stumps and such

 

[Gord]

It's common locally to blow up hazardous snags during logging operations, but only if they can't be felled conventionally of course.

 

[mpriley02]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting, not enough money to treat them but enough money to blow them up. I would think the explosives would cost more than Merit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup. I'd be curious to see the numbers on this project.

They saved the ones nearest to the trails, but they could have (and should have) done a whole lot more. We were hired to released beetles in there, but they did next to nothing. Hindsight is 20/20, but in this case, there were lots of people telling the forest service that this would happen, and they didn't listen.