So, my question is this. If each individual tree or slope has to have an escape plan in effect (a good faller falls 300 – 700 trees per shift). is this to slow down productivity or is it a way out for WCB to say afterneach accident “He did not follow WCB protocol when he fell that tree on himself or a “widow-maker” lands on him? Sounds like an escape clause to deny yet another forest industry his due coverage or compensation.

apologize for sticking keys in previous posting.

Sounds sort of like the “Forestry” plan for fighting fires on blocks.
A friend of mine logs down south. Somebody noticed a fire start. They pulled the water trailer up there and got the fire out in twenty minutes. He got supreme ‘you know what’ from Forestry because he didn’t follow their “Plan” to muster all his men together, assign them all specific duties, develop a firefighting plan and so on and so on.
If he had done all that, they would have had a real fire on their hands to fight for who knows how long, shut down production, pay wages for nothing and on and on.
Its almost like ‘Forestry’ wants fires to get out of control so they can come in, assess the situation, determine a plan of attack, contact firefighters, get them out to it, hire machinery, get it all hauled out there, set up a camp, assign everyone their duties, get the coffee on and then sit back and fight this raging inferno with all available support.

And just take a guess as to who pays for all this crap?

western2: I think you’ve got it right.

A competant contractor will know the best way to do things to provide the safest production he can. He really doesn’t need all the bureaucratic nonsense these white hats in Victoria seem to live to produce. A lot of it is just plain B.S. written by people who have never logged a stick in their lives.

I did all my logging on the outside coast where cutting 300-700 trees/day would not be humanly possible (all 1st growth timber). We had trees it would take two fallers two days to bring down.
We also had falling supervisors, called Bullbuckers, who oversaw production as well as faller competency and safety. They would plan out strategies for opening up cut blocks as well as general and specific safety plans (e.g. where to marshall to bring an injured faller out to the road). Despite all this, we still lost, on avergae, 12 fallers a year to fatal accidents. The avergae years of experience was nine, so these weren’t always green fallers. Countless others were injured, sometimes permanently, by saw mishaps, falling limbs/tops, “barberchairs”, hang-ups gone wrong, or even another faller’s screw-up.
I don’t know how it works for hand-fallers in the interior or how these so-called plans differ from what used to be done down on the open coast, but anything that saves fallers lives and limbs regardless whether it means a few less dollars of profits in the pockets of the companies cannot possibly be a bad thing.

How long is a shift during which a “good” faller can fall up to 700?

Faller’s need to be able to unionize.

No way can a faller cut 700 trees a day! You must be talking about corn stalks – not trees. Do you think there is a yellow brick road past all the trees that must be cut. There must be a swamper to carry the gas and oil as well as a water tank on wheels. Show me a guy who says cut 700 trees in a day!
Now lets talk about machinery for falling trees.

700 trees would be about a tree a minute for a 12 hour shift. Subract lunches, breaks, fuel ups and sharpening from that….

So just who would these falling supervisors be? If they themselves are not a certified faller with years of experience, they won’t be worth a pinch of coon****.
Personally, I’d like to see all these guys who make up the rules have to be out there doing the jobs they seem to love to dictate. It should be a prerequisite for their overseeing jobs.
I’ve seen project managers crawling along on their hands and knees because they had never learned to walk a log. Now that was funny!

Please, folks, let’s keep in mind that the problem they’re trying to fix is the death of loggers, something I fail to see the humour in.