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Author Topic: Fuel reduction  (Read 6931 times)

Offline Stevem

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Fuel reduction
« on: September 17, 2015, 12:03:37 PM »
Years ago in the Dubois, Wyoming area railroad ties were cut from the surrounding forests.  Trees were selected that met size requirements, hand felled and flattened on two sides, put in a damed runoff draw awaiting spring runoff when the dam would be busted and the log "sent" to the lowlands for pickup and use by the railroads.  (Heard it was a very fast trip!) By selecting sizes, not too small and not to large, the forest was vigorous and healthy.

What if:

The various forest service's supported mobile sawmills to reduce fuel loads in the forests?

A business plane was developed where a small mobile mill with two people could be set up in a location in the forest where 5 to 10 acres of standing dead, fire killed trees or areas that needed thinning could be harvested with minimal equipment and low ground impact.  Say a saw, a 1 1/2 ton flatbed truck to pull it, and another truck to pull a flatbed trailer with a tracked machine for yarding logs and moving sawn logs to the mill and some way to load the flatbeds to haul the processed wood to the market.  Maybe add some sort of forklift to load trucks and off load the mill.  The mill could be on the ground to ease loading and unloading.

If the forest service marked or specified selected sizes of tree for harvest that was economically viable for the mill and market.

A market was developed for the sawn timber/cants/beams/ties or flitches.

Waste could be stacked for burning or perhaps used as feed stock for a pellet mill depending on distance/cost to get to get it there or even chipped for forest mulch (but that requires another piece of equipment).

Selling points:

Reduce fuel load in forest.
Put people to work.
Support local industry
   Forest product production
   Sawmill manufacture support
   Lower cost building material for the housing industry
   ???

Looking for inputs, nays and yeas, additional tweaks, just comments


Stevem
Because you can doesn't mean you should!

Offline backwoods sawyer

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Re: Fuel reduction
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2015, 11:54:44 PM »
There is a 180 acre tract of land that I am writing a similar proposal for.
the 180 acres next to it was recently thinned, overly thinned in my opinion, What I am proposing is a gradual thinning over several years.
how well this will be received has yet to be determined.   

Offline Stevem

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Re: Fuel reduction
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2015, 02:38:08 PM »
Is it private or "government" acreage?

Might be interested in seeing the proposal if that's not stepping on any toes.
Stevem
Because you can doesn't mean you should!

Offline backwoods sawyer

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Re: Fuel reduction
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2015, 08:07:14 PM »
It is BLM land (O&C) that was logged off in the mid 80's and precommercial thinned in the last decade.
Sensitive creek to manage with old growth canopy.
I still have plenty of research to do this winter ;)

Offline Stevem

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Re: Fuel reduction
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2015, 11:16:06 AM »
FWIW:

You can work with BLM and they listen but the ONC adds a level of complexity.  Several years ago I bought a wind fall in a county park that was ONC land managed by BLM.  BLM did all the hoop jumping for me and I wound up buying "three cords of fire wood"!  Built my front porch with that fire wood.

Put this idea out on "Wood Web" and got laughed at.  Most people don't understand the western forests and all the government controls and hoops. Nor the amount of acreages involved

180 acres is a big chunk!

USFS has a program where the "work done" can be counted toward "purchase price" of any recovered wood, at least in the Santiam district. Don't know if BLM has that program.  You can wind up with zero cash outlay.  They are years and years behind in their thinning needs and no money to do anything about it.  This fire season will reduce the available funds more.  The problem is huge and might be a prime time to offer alternative solutions!  I can see hundreds of small mills not even making a dent in the need.

Working with the State in Oregon or counties, from my experience, is a lost cause.

But I didn't sign up with my sawmill to become a logger just hate to see the wood burned up.
Stevem
Because you can doesn't mean you should!

Offline furu

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Re: Fuel reduction
« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2015, 03:01:00 PM »
Interesting idea.  The actual implementation problem would be ensuring that excess damage was not done.  Fuel reduction in our forests would radically reduce the intensity of the fires.  There is finally some interest in letting low level fires to burn to reduce the fuels.  Problem is after decades of abuse our forests are so full of  ground fuel there almost can be no low level fire anymore.
Integrity is not just doing the right thing.
Integrity is not just doing the right thing when no one is looking.
Integrity is doing the right thing when no one else will ever even know.