A collection of 39 North Carolina OSH compliance officers and consultants from across the state met at Howell Woods Environmental Learning Center in Four Oaks to gain a better understanding of the logging profession and the forest products industry. The weeklong program stressed hands-on demonstrations on the safety challenges loggers face on a daily basis.
"The goal is to equip these individuals with a better understanding of our industry and some insights on what they should be looking for when they inspect a logging operation," stated Chris Brown with the North Carolina Forestry Association (NCFA).
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(right) Bryan Wagner stumping for proper felling technique with OSHNC.
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"Bryan Wagner with Forestry Mutual did an awesome job reaching out to the class with his enthusiasm and knowledge and drawing them in," continued Brown. "He drilled them on the do's and don'ts on proper felling technique. There is no doubting Wagner's sincerity and passion for safety training, especially when he gets into his element, the woods. The class really responded positively to Bryan and his field exercises. We had a tremendous week of training."
This year's session marked a revival of the officer training partnership that once existed between the North Carolina Forestry Association, Forestry Mutual Insurance Company, Carolina Loggers Association and the North Carolina Department of Labor. The training started back in the late 1990's and continued until 2010 when budget cuts forced the program into hibernation.
Thankfully, the program was revived this year in the Department of Labor's budget and was supported further by a grant from the North Carolina SFI State Implementation Committee. It is hoped the program will continue as an annual or biannual training session into the future.
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Mark Rasdall
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"Great training," stated OSHNC Compliance Officer Mark Rasdall. "Especially thepractical portions of it. The demonstrations. To me, I am a hands-on, visual kind of guy, you show me that stuff and then let me touch and feel. To me, that's the best way to learn. Death by power point is never a good thing. We eliminated a lot of that in here by having a lot of practical, crawl-walk-run method of teaching. It was outstanding."
The session started with basic introductions of the participating organizations.
Gary Thorpe of OSHNC expressed on the opening day that luck is a great thing to have, but it should not be a company's safety plan.
"You train so you don't need luck," stated Thorpe. "We are here this week to make sure these guys are getting the proper training."
Forestry Mutual's Chain Saw Trainer, Bryan Wagner, began the formal safety presentations with a review of proper protection equipment (PPE) and the proper felling technique he teaches at the NCFA's ProLogger base course and to policyholders throughout Forestry Mutual's five-state area of operations.
The felling plan calls for loggers to 1) look for overhead hazards, 2) determine good side/bad side of tree 3) plan the escape path, 4) determine hinge thickness, cut for hinge, 5) deliver back cut to release trigger. A quick video summary of this technique can be found on the ProLogger Page on the NCFA's website,
www.ncforesty.org
. Click here to see that file.
With the dry erase board session complete, Wagner led the group fairly deep into Howell Woods in search of a few trees he had marked early for harvest. The trees varied in size and shape. Wagner demonstrated how the first three steps of the felling procedure demand the logger to think critically about his surroundings and plan his escape path.
Step four of the procedure - determining and establishing the proper hinge-wood thickness - is the key to the entire program. In general, hinge-wood is a continuous line of wood that is never cut. The hinge wood is closest to the side of the tree that has a face notch. As its name suggests, this wood provides the hinge that keeps the tree falling in the desired direction and at a desired pace with no rebound or irregular movement by the tree's trunk from the stump area when the tree hits the ground. This is critical.
"The eight feet around the base of the tree are where the overwhelming majority of fatalities occur during felling operations," stated Bryan Wagner. "That circle - that's our danger zone. My goal is to give my guys the tools to get out of dodge safely."
Compliance officers took the time to gather around each stump to see how the hinge-wood looked on the stump.
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OSHNC Compliance Officers inspect the stump of a tree cut by Bryan Wagner. They are examining the hinge-wood on the cut. As a side note, this cut includes a bore cut within the hinge-wood. This is acceptable since the tree is still held in place at two points on the hinge.
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Wagner also took the liberty of "miscutting" one tree to show how improper cuts do not provide the same stability during the tree's decent as the hinge-wood cut. Some of these unsafe felling techniques are called swing cuts, bypass and straight-through cuts. The officers had the opportunity to see what these dangerous cutting methods look like on the remaining stump.
Once a few trees were safely on the ground, Wagner revealed some cutting techniques that are designed to deal with tension wood. Tension wood is created whenever a tree or tree limb is put under pressure by the way it is laying on the ground or against another tree.
The tongue and groove cut - which calls for two offset cuts on each side of a bore cut - is one way to cut a large limb under heavy tension without exposing the timber cutter to any danger. Once the tongue and groove cut is completed, the timber cutter can move on to another tree.
When one end of the tongue and groove notched tree is picked up by the skidder, the tree stem releases easily at the cut, leaving a distinctly shaped notch on one end and a hole in the other. If there is any movement as the tension is released, there is no exposure to ground personnel.
This technique is also useful with trees that have been blown down in a storm and the root ball is still intact. When the skidder pulls the top of the tree, the tree separates at the tongue and groove cut and the root ball inevitably pivots back into the hole it was uprooted from. Again, no ground personnel is close to the moving parts.
"Whenever possible, use mechanized equipment when dealing with storm damage," emphasized Wagner. "This will limit the exposure to ground personnel."
For some in the group, like Mark Rasdall, who is also a paramedic/volunteer firefighter, the methods were enlightening.
"A lot of times, we are called out in the middle of the night to clear roadways and things like that, a lot of the trees that we come across are extremely large," stated Rasdall. "The methods of cutting some of those - the tongue and groove cut - especially for the bigger trees, it eliminates the personnel being in the area when the tension is relieved unlike the way that we are currently practicing that. It will take a hazard out of the picture that really never needed to be there but unfortunately due to the nature of the work we do, it is there."
The training switched gears on day two with a review and demonstration of arborists Kevin Lilley and Ken Slaton. Again, Howell Woods was a great demonstration classroom. Slaton scaled a pine tree just outside the classroom, providing a glimpse of how arborist work in tandem to tackle tree work.
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Arborist Ken Slaton (high right) makes his way up to the first set of limbs.
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"Logging and arborist are two distinct and different fields," stated Kevin Lilley. "The equipment is different. The approach is different. A logger is looking at acres of trees. An arborist is looking at one tree at a time."
The program returned to the logging profession on day three and the highlight of day was a demonstration on how important PPE, especially chaps are to a timber cutter. Wagner positioned a wooden leg, equipped with a boot no less, protected by a pair of chaps in between a thick tree limb with a fork at the end. After a few cuts to the tree limb to show the saw is razor sharp, Wagner intentionally missed the tree limb and sunk the saw into the chaps protecting wooden leg. The saw was stopped instantly.
Compliance officers were amazed when Wagner rolled back the chaps to reveal that the wooden leg had not received a scratch. The video of this demonstration is listed on the NCFA's facebook page. Click here to see this file.
"I am always amazed by the ability of the protective material, to stop the violent nature of the running saw chain," stated Wagner. "And, keep in mind, I have run this demonstration countless times. So I am not surprised when people who are witnessing it for the first time, are really shocked."
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Bryan Wagner (center) explains how the chaps choked out the saw.
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Forestry Mutual President Keith Biggs stepped to the podium on day four to illustrate a series of real life scenarios where a timber cutter had expired due to a mistake in his felling plan or felling execution. All of the examples were from Forestry Mutual's own files.
Biggs thanked the OSHNC officers for attending the class and providing a valuable service to the forest products industry.
"At the end of the day, everyone in this room has the same goal," stated Forestry Mutual President Keith Biggs. "We want everyone on the job to go home to their loved ones the same way they showed up that morning - upright and in one piece."
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| Keith Biggs led a discussion on investigating fatalities in the field. |
Biggs encouraged the officers to be diligent and fair in their duties. He explained to the group that Forestry Mutual has several standing "no tolerance" policies such as PPE, Lock Out - Tag Out, and proper felling. If a policyholder is found in violation of a "no tolerance" policy, they are dealt with harshly.
"If you come on a jobsite and the loggers are not wearing PPE, please give them a citation," stated Biggs. "And if they are one of my guys, let me know. There is no excuse in this day and age for any of our guys to be out in the woods without the proper PPE."
Keeping with the design of the course, the compliance officers were then taken out to the woods where they were separated into five groups in order to tour five pre-set fatality scenes that Wagner had staged the day before.
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OSHNC Consultant Diedrik Lewis (orange) led one of the five groups during the field session on fatality investigation.
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Officers were challenged to examine the site and piece together what could have been the cause of the tragedy. Not surprisingly, the groups quickly honed in on the stumps for clues. They also checked existing overhead hazards in addition to examining the condition of the equipment on the scene.
"The investigative piece I got out of this for OSHA and the better understanding of the things that go on in the woods as a OSHA inspector is outstanding," stated Mark Rasdall.
On Friday, in the tradition of the NCFA's ProLogger base class, the group visited an active logging job to get a close up view. No one can never say that ProLogger Tony Teague isn't a brave man!
Teague graciously opened up his logging job to scrutiny of not just one OSHNC Compliance Officers, but more like 31 and several OSHNC Consultative Services Officers as well.
Compliance Officers Gary Thorpe, Eric Smith, Dietrik Lewis and Chuck Murdock led a discussion on the logging operation with a particular focus on the equipment.
Teague even saved the group what can be a dodgy walk into the logging woods by bringing up one of his skidders and cutters to the front of the log deck.
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ProLogger Tony Teague hosted the OSHNC group on Friday as part of the field day to an active logging operation. Teague was in the first class of ProLoggers dating back to 1995.
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During the conversations, one of the compliance officers asked Teague what they personally could do to make an OSHA inspection a pleasant experience.
"Not sure about that one," stated Teague with a chuckle. "I have been inspected a few times over the years, and they have always been professional and helpful. That's all I can ask for. We try to do things the right way. We always try to be professional. That helps the process."
With the training program back on the schedule, the NCFA hopes to continue to coordinate with its partners to keep this program alive into the future. The benefits are bountiful for the forest products community.
The NCFA would like to extend special thanks to the our hosts - the staff at Howell Woods Environmental Center, including Jordan Astoskie, Meredith Massengill, Mike Rose, and Matt Morris - for their hospitality for the week.
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Group photo time with Tony Teague up front - Thanks for your help today Tony!
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The 2017 Mid-Atlantic Logging & Biomass Expo will be moving to Laurinburg, North Carolina this year. The two-day live expo will take place on September 15-16, 2017 on a tremendous mature tract of timber just off of U.S. Highway 74. The gates will open at 8:00 a.m. each day.
