Fallers

Key Responsibilities

• Secure steel cables or chains to logs for dragging by tractors or for pulling by cable yarding systems.
• Measure felled trees and cut them into specified log lengths, using chain saws and axes.
• Place supporting limbs or poles under felled trees to avoid splitting undersides, and to prevent logs from rolling.
• Saw back-cuts, leaving sufficient sound wood to control direction of fall.
• Stop saw engines, pull cutting bars from cuts, and run to safety as tree falls.
• Insert jacks or drive wedges behind saws to prevent binding of saws and to start trees falling.
• Work as a member of a team, rotating between chain saw operation and skidder operation.
• Clear brush from work areas and escape routes, and cut saplings and other trees from direction of falls, using axes, chainsaws, or bulldozers.
• Load logs or wood onto trucks, trailers, or railroad cars, by hand or using loaders or winches.
• Tag unsafe trees with high-visibility ribbons.
• Appraise trees for certain characteristics, such as twist, rot, and heavy limb growth, and gauge amount and direction of lean, to determine how to control the direction of a tree's fall with the least damage.
• Maintain and repair chainsaws and other equipment, cleaning, oiling, and greasing equipment, and sharpening equipment properly.
• Trim off the tops and limbs of trees, using chainsaws, delimbers, or axes.
• Select trees to be cut down, assessing factors such as site, terrain, and weather conditions before beginning work.
• Control the direction of a tree's fall by scoring cutting lines with axes, sawing undercuts along scored lines with chainsaws, knocking slabs from cuts with single-bit axes, and driving wedges.
• Assess logs after cutting to ensure that the quality and length are correct.
• Mark logs for identification.
• Determine position, direction, and depth of cuts to be made, and placement of wedges or jacks.