Tree clearing technique?

I'll bang the trunk with a backhoe, (that's all I have). 23 feet reach gives me some margin of safety. If nothing comes crashing down, I can push gently on the trunk. Most dead trees can be pushed over in one piece.

Other choice is chaining a snatch block to the trunk as high as I dare. I then winch them down. I did a live Cottonwood one time. It yielded 3.5 cords of not very good firewood. I miscalculated the height of the tree, the Power Wagon ended up in the top branches. No damage, but it sure made my heart pound!

I'm fairly confident with the 973 in trees with hydrostats you can really creep up slowly. Sometimes it doesn't matter how easy you bump them the top seems to whip back towards you. We have lots of oaks dying in this part of the country and elm disease.
As for chaining them down with two machines that would never work in this part of the country. Some of the root wads are 10 foot across or more and may pull out of the clay 4 or 5 foot down. I've had oaks that once pushed down I couldn't get the root wad rolled out of the hole with the 73. Have to push dirt in around the and walk them up to get them to move. With the clay we have here most trees are tight unless it real wet then you don't have the traction to do a lot.

gwhammy said:

I'm fairly confident with the 973 in trees with hydrostats you can really creep up slowly. Sometimes it doesn't matter how easy you bump them the top seems to whip back towards you. We have lots of oaks dying in this part of the country and elm disease.
As for chaining them down with two machines that would never work in this part of the country. Some of the root wads are 10 foot across or more and may pull out of the clay 4 or 5 foot down. I've had oaks that once pushed down I couldn't get the root wad rolled out of the hole with the 73. Have to push dirt in around the and walk them up to get them to move. With the clay we have here most trees are tight unless it real wet then you don't have the traction to do a lot.

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I don't often deal with clay. At home it is rock, at "the land" it's sand.
We did an underground service a few weeks ago. There it was rock hard ?clay? there was enough football to baseball sized rock, even after digging it out with backhoe, you couldn't get a hand shovel full. 46" deep ditch was exactly as wide as the bucket. Walls were utterly vertical.

I can't figure out how trees grow in soil like that.

Yesterday I walked through my grove of ash. They're more dead than I thought with a few already fallen. One end of the grove looks to have been killed longer with a few at the other end still a little alive. Too dangerous to doze I think.
Probably still too dangerous, but I thought about notching them on a calm day and waiting for the wind to finish them off.
I'm going to have to earn the deer hunters to avoid the area.

Anchor chains would never work, we'd thought about that, and as for walking up and bumping anything, its usually never the one that your working on that would get you, its the one's that your not watching that will end up coming over the machine that will kill you. The other issue is, the larger taller dead ash are in the center of the ditch and the killed off shorter box elders are around the outside, so in order to get at any of them, I'd have to deal with the short stuff first, and the only place to shove it is in towards the taller stuff. I've been around enough dead trees in my day to know when something is far too dangerous to get close to and work safely around and this ravine is the definition of just that, something waiting to kill someone and I really don't plan on it being me or my crew, after all, until I take the job, its really not my problem nor my liability issues. Its only after I agree to do the job am I liable for what happens when I'm onsite.

We've burned down standing dead trees before that were too dangerous to get near, wait for the right day and the ideal conditions and set the base on fire and wait them out, the fire works its way up the tree and when it weakens it enough, gravity takes care of bringing it down safely................but I've never done it to hundreds at one time before, usually only a hand full at a time over a distance enough we can safely get around each tree individually and isolate them so to speak.

The job we're just finishing up was bad enough, nearly 100 dead ash in that job in one area the size of about a half an acre or so, when you'd shove one down, the impact as it fell into others would bring several more down at the same time and the impact as they hit the ground would bring a few more down, there's no control whats so ever and no way to predict what, where, how many would come down and no way to predict where it was safe to be when things would start to fall. Not something I like doing or anywhere I like to be when unexpected things start to happen and we have more than one machine running at the same time.

The whole idea of standing back safely and shooting fire into and onto the tree trunks to ignite them is appealing, you have to remember there is an enormous amount of dead stuff and tops already on the ground to start the fire with and keep it fed for a while, I just don't know if it would be enough to sustain the fire and get the tops and limbs burned off and get them all or enough to drop so it would be safe to be around and go in and grub and clear the rest out once the fire subsides. In theory it would work fine, reality....................might be different and once started, I'd have to do some checking, but I'm thinking I'm liable for anything that happens after the start day. So if it doesn't work according to theory and we can't get enough to burn down, that means if someone would get hurt later on because I can't safely work around it, I might be liable with a signed liability waiver for the owner and their insurance company.

Liability is definitely a concern. I'm in a corner.....if I do nothing with my dead trees I may be liable. Too dangerous to doze. If I notch them and wait for wind to bring them down I may be liable for a hunter going through. It will be difficult to find someone with insurance to take them down at this point too.

Vermont is said to have asbestos forests. Kind of a bad joke, 'cause conditions COULD be right for a forest fire.
Here, it rains at least once a week. Dominantly deciduous forest always has a deep "sponge" of soggy leaf decaying on the ground. A rain free week mid summer, fire might burn only the very top layer of loose leaves.

One arson fire burned over 6-1/2 acres, went out by itself. It burned only the upturned tips of 6 months dead maple leaves. After the fire, you had to look close to realize it had burned.

I've heard of burning standing hollow trees with a roaring wood fueled fire at the base. Not sure I could pile enough dry fire wood to make a solid tree burn up.

In other climates forest fire is a real concern. Read the book: The Week Maine Burned. A staggering story of 1947 October. A drought in Maine during hunting season, a careless hunter with a cigarette is believed to have started the fire on Mount Desert Island. Simultaneously, other fires elsewhere. Millions of acres, millions of homes were destroyed. I've lost track of the death toll.

I don't see fire being practical, or less liability at least. Could be wrong?

Anchor chain is not readily available in Iowa as far as I know, and probably not the dozers needed to pull over the native trees in your soil either. What could work would be two larger sized tractors with a suitable sized cable between them, and a way to get it high up the tree. You say this is a ravine, how far out would the tractors have to be to get the cable 20' or so up the trunk? Then have something like a few cable clamps to catch the trunk and either pull it over, or snap off, or just snap off the loose limbs and ride over as it bends. Now that I think about it, I don't think I'd want two large tractors, rather one medium tractor sized to not be able to break the cable, and a truck or smaller tractor on the other side as a brake, and to pull the cable back.

Delmer said:

I don't see fire being practical, or less liability at least. Could be wrong?

Anchor chain is not readily available in Iowa as far as I know, and probably not the dozers needed to pull over the native trees in your soil either. What could work would be two larger sized tractors with a suitable sized cable between them, and a way to get it high up the tree. You say this is a ravine, how far out would the tractors have to be to get the cable 20' or so up the trunk? Then have something like a few cable clamps to catch the trunk and either pull it over, or snap off, or just snap off the loose limbs and ride over as it bends. Now that I think about it, I don't think I'd want two large tractors, rather one medium tractor sized to not be able to break the cable, and a truck or smaller tractor on the other side as a brake, and to pull the cable back.

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Before I owned as much equipment, I had a 1956 Power Wagon with two winches. I'd use a snatch block & a ladder to place the pulley as high as I dared. Truck front chained to a healthy tree, or a couple vehicles/tractors. Other end of winch cable to similar. I've never failed to pull them down. I only have 180feet of cable, so I sometimes had to supplement cable with a number of 3/8 transport chains.

Ash usually aren't hollow so getting a fire up the middle of them won't work. I don't have a good answer, I've had some fairly good size tops fall on the cab with no damage but you don't want to make that a habit. Cleaning around the area and getting a good fire started is probably safest. Loaders or excavators would be my choice if I had to do the job. A long reach excavator if someone was willing to use one for this. What diameter are most of the trees?

If you were to stay far enough away from the trees so they couldn't be pulled over on top of you, doubt anything I own would even pull the anchor chain itself, let alone grub any tree's.

The burn thing isn't something that would bother me one bit, pick a nice winter day with some snow cover on most everything, keeping in mind, this isn't near anything else, its a ravine in the middle of a farm, the nearest building would be a 1/2 miles away and it would have to jump two roads to get to those, which I doubt would ever happen, that and it would have scorch several farms in between which have no corn stalks left out on them anyhow, cattlemen own them and everything is either chopped for silage or round baled after harvest. Only this farmers corn stalks would be an issue, and as I told him, chisel the whole farm when he's done combining and it should be a non issue.

The other thing to bear in mind is this, wait them out, stay away and not plant along the boarder or better yet bid those acres into a set aside program and not farm near this at all, eventually they will fall down and nobody would get hurt, post signs stating to keep out private property and keep those signs up and consult with an attorney and have him or her deal with your insurance company and work a deal out till the trees are safe enough to pile up and burn. Like I told him, he has options and right now plenty of them and to keep calm and bide for some more time.

As for burning standing trees, we've done it before many times, when they are that rotten and if you can get the right conditions that will dry them out, like in the dead of winter and still have snow cover, they really do burn good, the key is figuring out how to get close enough to them to light them up and not get hurt with falling debris. We've also done it in the dead of summer when everything is green and growing full tilt, then nothing else burns in my area but the dead stuff. Rotten tree's burn great, take very little to ignite and once lit, keep burning really well till the top heavy weight topples them over or they burn down enough only the trunk is left standing. We've also burned some that overnight they fell and the next day, there was nothing left but ashes, they burned up completely, then all we had to do is grub the stump out.

D6, I'd venture a guess you have insurance, just call the company your insured with and start asking questions, general ones about liability and see what they tell you, you can also post signs to keep out and don't give anyone permission to hunt for the next few years, after all its your land and you don't have to provide permission to enter. Most insurance companies will give you answers of some sort, some better than others, ask them what to do with the dead trees, eventually they'll fall down on their own, gravity always wins in the end and at the rate ash rot, it won't take that many more years anyhow.

I don't know about Ia. but we are supposedly allowed to use old tires to start brush piles. Dead ash should burn easy. I hate asking insurance companies anything unless you have a really good agent you can trust.

Get one of these and turn it horizontal

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a29132702/helicopter-chainsaw/

materthegreater said:

Get one of these and turn it horizontal

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a29132702/helicopter-chainsaw/

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Now I've seen everything!

It occurs to me that trees seldom fall except during a storm. I won't say it can't happen, but it doesn't happen often.
I've got to believe a feller/buncher, or long reach excavator would be an efficient way to knock them down.
More logical solution is post the area, hazard keep out.

You'd have to call the DNR and ask them yourself, they are in charge of what is or isn't allowed in your state, but since they are a federal agency, I wouldn't bank on it being legal. You can also ask your local sheriffs department what their stance is on that, I'd also want it in writing from both before I did it, and ask what happens if someone files a complaint about you burning them and what happens then.

The limb saws, watched the James Bond movie myself several times but despite sawing a car in half, they are only designed to saw small limbs, the wait time to get them to come is in the years, the cost was prohibitive and the likely hood of it happening before everyone involved died of old age isn't very good, they are kept busy doing major power lines in remote area's, they are great to watch in person though especially if your a pilot yourself, made me walk away thinking those guys are beyond crazy.

Randy88 said:

You'd have to call the DNR and ask them yourself, they are in charge of what is or isn't allowed in your state, but since they are a federal agency, I wouldn't bank on it being legal. You can also ask your local sheriffs department what their stance is on that, I'd also want it in writing from both before I did it, and ask what happens if someone files a complaint about you burning them and what happens then.

The limb saws, watched the James Bond movie myself several times but despite sawing a car in half, they are only designed to saw small limbs, the wait time to get them to come is in the years, the cost was prohibitive and the likely hood of it happening before everyone involved died of old age isn't very good, they are kept busy doing major power lines in remote area's, they are great to watch in person though especially if your a pilot yourself, made me walk away thinking those guys are beyond crazy.

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It does seem like a lot could go wrong with that. Flying a helicopter over trees that way, you'd be at the mercy of whatever your saw might get caught on.

I did a job for the USACE maybe 15-20 years ago to remove a couple stands of Pine Beetle damaged Loblolly Pines that were cordoned off from the public due to the hazard. I did it with the PC200 and the mulcher head. Same kind of situation with dead standing timber that if shook, could come down on you easily. It was a job of patience as I test pushed each tree and then started notching with the spinning head if I could not shake anything loose with the push. It was a job of some pucker-factor but I never really thought much about it other than to be safe in my process. I was not allowed out of my cab while working those sections.

I deal with these kinds of trees on a daily basis but generally not so many in a grove that there could be a domino effect. My general approach is to push slowly at first to see if it will just break over and if not, try to rattle it from the safest side so there is little chance of crap hitting my cab. If it's a really big dead tree with lots of overhanging limbs that, if shook, will come down on my cab, those I pre-cut with the Husqy and gently push with the machine if a push is required. It's all about patience and slow movements so that nothing "pops" or gets a bad shake at the wrong time.

If I had a big job like what is being described on this thread and if it was way worse than dealing with those dead pines, I would build an attachment for the excavator to reach up higher, gently engage the trunk and then attempt to snap off the upper sections of the tree and work my way down until firm wood beyond the ability of the attachment was reached. Once the worst hazards are down, mulch everything to grade level. It's likely that dead Ash will mulch really fast. I've had this concept of an attachment in my head for years now but no jobs big enough to justify anything further. Just 'cause I'm operating does not mean my heads not thinking about alternative ways of accomplishing the work.

Some of these new grapples with bucking saws built in may also be an alternative but the trick will be to not shake anything while working it. I've never run one of these units so I really don't know how smooth you could be with one. I can envision a slow grab with a light tilt pressure while engaging the saw with continued tilt. Once that cut is completed it will likely jump a bit and shake off anything loose. A smooth operator might be able to keep good control with one of these attachments.

Willie B said:

It does seem like a lot could go wrong with that. Flying a helicopter over trees that way, you'd be at the mercy of whatever your saw might get caught on.

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It's also the absolute worst phase of flight to be in. Hover out of ground effect with no forward speed and little altitude. You do not get an autorotation from that scenario. It comes down mostly like a toolbox with a broken handle.
Even the shakebolt pilots have some forward speed at all times and time everything.

This might sound a little off but I have picked broken tops out of the tops of trees with an all terrain extendaboom forklift. The bigger ones reach about 55 foot out. Just a thought a day with one breaking all the tops off then it's controllable. You can get a picking boom on the forks that reaches another 10 to 15 feet. I've set some fairly heavy steel with one of those.