Five Tree Felling Plan Steps for Successful Removals and Worker Safety

Summary: Ralph Tompkins of ArborMaster Training, Inc., likes to be called Rip and to follow five tree felling plan steps for successful removals and worker safety.

Determining the direction of tree fall is the second in Ralph Tompkins' five-step felling plan for tree removal safety; direction indicated on OSHA diagram offers ample, clear pathway to ease removal: Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA)/US Department of Labor, Public Domain, via OSHA

Five tree felling plan steps accommodate successful removals and worker safety, according to an article by Ralph Tompkins of ArborMaster Training, Inc., in Little Compton, Rhode Island, for Arborist News October 2011.

Working the Five-Step Felling Plan brings concerns that "Safety needs to remain the top priority" to the forefront with the first step identifying hazards and obstacles. The International Society of Arboriculture's Glossary of Arboricultural Terms considers "personal injury, property damage, or disruption of human activities" as results of hazardous conditions and situations. Arborists describe as obstacles houses and vehicles, people and personal property, trees and "whatever you can hurt or damage in the process of felling a tree."

Geometric principles of similar right triangles estimate tree height at positions where a stick's measurement from handhold to tip equals a tree's from cut to treetop.

Height estimates by hypsometers, rangefinders or sticks furnish information for establishing danger zones whose distance from tree base to circle perimeter equals 1.5 times tree height.

The second of the five tree felling plan steps gives the direction that a tree may fall because of a backward, forward or sideward lean weight. A plumb line dropped down from the center spot in a tree's canopy hits the ground in such a way as to specify direction of fall. A tree's bad side identifies the backward, forward or sideward-leaning direction of fall whereas the good side indicates the location where all cutting operations must finish.

Sawyers generally judge backward-leaning and straight-standing trees as easily felled by gravity once pull lines and wedges lift them over center and sideward-leaning trees as dangerous.

The third of the five tree felling plan steps keeps clear of personnel, excepting the sawyer, the "escape route away from the base of the tree."

The best escape route leads the sawyer over a "path of egress" on the tree's good side, "opposite the direction of fall at a 45-degree angle." It minimizes "unplanned event" occurrences within the "15-foot (4.5 m) radius of the tree base" where 80 to 90 percent of tree felling accidents take place. It needs to be straightforward since side-leaning, weak-fibered eucalyptus, tree of heaven and white pine cannot hold hinges like strong-fibered hickory, ponderosa pine and white oak.

The fourth step offers three notches, with open-face notches of 70 to 90 degrees providing, through hinges working longer, greater control than conventional or Humboldt notches.

Sawyers prefer hinge lengths at 80 percent, and hinge thickness at 7 to 10 percent, of a tree's diameter, excepting dry, fibrous, frozen or large-sized trees.

Chain saw-made bore cuts, cuts into tree rears and stepped back cuts away from notch apexes qualify as fifth in the five tree felling plan steps. Back-leaning, open-face-notched and straight-standing trees require back cuts whereas open-face notches in tight-spaced trees respond as well as conventional or Humboldt notches to stepped back cuts. Bore cuts saw nicely into forward-leaning trees unless chain saw bar top-, not bottom-, effected cuts provoke "barber chair" splits vertically upward and kickbacks into sawyers.

Margins for error in urban environments turn out to be "very small" so planning procedures must consider alternative methods when felling trees turns unprofitable and unsafe.

felling direction, danger area and safe retreat paths: Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA)/US Department of Labor, Public Domain, via OSHA

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to:
talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet;
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for superior on-campus and on-line resources.

Image credits:

Determining the direction of tree fall is the second in Ralph Tompkins' five-step felling plan for tree removal safety: Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA)/US Department of Labor, Public Domain, via OSHA @ https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/logging/manual/felling/felling_direction.html

felling direction, danger area and safe retreat paths: Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA)/US Department of Labor, Public Domain, via OSHA @ https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/logging/manual/felling/retreat_path.html

For further information:

International Society of Arboriculture. 2005. Glossary of Arboricultural Terms. Champaign IL: International Society of Arboriculture.

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 August 2011. “Natives and Non-Natives as Successfully Urbanized Plant Species.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/08/natives-and-non-natives-as-successfully.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 June 2011. “Tree Ring Patterns for Ecosystem Ages, Dates, Health and Stress.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/06/tree-ring-patterns-for-ecosystem-ages.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 9 April 2011. “Benignly Ugly Tree Disorders: Oak Galls, Powdery Mildew, Sooty Mold, Tar Spot.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/04/benignly-ugly-tree-disorders-oak-galls.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 12 February 2011. “Tree Load Can Turn Tree Health Into Tree Failure or Tree Fatigue.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/02/tree-load-can-turn-tree-health-into.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 December 2010. “Tree Electrical Safety Knowledge, Precautions, Risks and Standards.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2010/12/tree-electrical-safety-knowledge.html

Tompkins, Ralph. October 2011. "Working the Five-Step Felling Plan." Arborist News 20(5): 12-16.