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Avoid Tree Trimming Dangers
Plan Your Safety Program Today
By John Young

• Don't let it bother you
• Electrical hazards
• Tree climbing
• Tree trimming from an aerial device
• Trimming technique
• Chipper operations
• Bottom Line

The young man was 21 years old. He had been married only a month, and his young wife was pregnant. Life was good, he was making good money and had just been promoted after only three months to a new lineman position. He would be in training for six to eight weeksthen would come graduation, his certification and another raise. He liked working out of the T-40s bucket; he could reach anything in that bucket.

His crew was putting up new fiber four days a week, and he was in class or on a pole in the tree farm learning how to climb another two days a week. Some of what he was doing was familiar from his days as a ground hand. Now he was trimming upper branches of some young saplings so he could put a run of fiber through the area.

There must be an easier way to do this, he would tell his foreman, but he just went around the corner to check what was next. Jack, the other experienced lineman, had just gotten into the cab with Charlie to call in a request for a new tool. He decided to go over the saplings and push them down with the boom before he trimmed them off. Yup, a lot easier. Oooops, the cord to his electric chainsaw was tangled up in the basket. He needed to clear it, and maybe he could pull it loose. ZZZZZaaaap! BOOM! Help, his shirt was on fire! Someone get me down, the controls dont work. Darkness and pain.

Where am I? "You are in the burn center, sir," answered the nurse. One year, five skin grafts and $850,000 later, the employee returned to workindoors. He lost the sweat glands under each arm and could no longer work outdoors in heat. Even so, he was very lucky. When he raised his arm with the electric chain saw and touched 19,000 V while trying to untangle the cord, he suffered burns on 60 percent of his upper body. The flash of energy when he made contact set his shirt on fire, did $15,000 worth of damage to the truck, and cost more than $1 million in medical expenses and construction delays.

Dont let it be you

Tree trimming rules, standards and operating requirements would have prevented this accident. Trimming can involve cutting one branch with a handsaw or cutting major limbs back with an electric chain saw. Whether you develop the programs yourself or purchase one (many are available from commercial sources), you need standards and operating procedures.

Standards and procedures need to cover six major areas. The first one is training requirements, which must cover areas such as certified instructors, equipment, maintenance, policies, operating procedures, personal protective equipment (PPE) and equipment safety.

Second, specific requirements must be set for personal protective equipment. Ground safety equipment might include items such as chaps, leather gloves, hard hats, safety glasses, hearing protection and safety shoes. Aerial safety equipment would include insulated gloves, hard hats, safety glasses, hearing protection, fall protection and radio equipment.

The third area of concern is equipment safety features for chainsaws and saws. Chainsaw features could include spark arrestors, anti-vibration mounting, gunning marks, dogs, wraparound handlebars, a semi-skip chain, 24-inch bars, wedges, standard nuts and bolts, and so on. Hand saws need hand protection and blades designed for cutting wooden limbs of reasonable size.

Next, you need a quality maintenance and inspection program that includes proper fuel use, regularly scheduled maintenance, saw sharpening, chain tensioning, proper storage of saws and fuel, and electrical safety.

Fifth, saw operations and trimming procedures must be addressed in detail. Be sure and include the following procedures in your plan: starting and operating a chain saw, limb removal, use of wedges, electrical hazards, felling trees, hang trees, rigging trees, tree climbing, trimming from aerial devices, branch control, limbing and bucking, and trimming and pruning techniques.

Sixth, chipper operations need to be covered relative to PPE and operating rules and lockout procedures.

Electrical hazards

Lets discuss in greater depth some areas that you must pay particular attention to. The first one is electrical hazards. When removing branches that are encroaching on or interfering with plant or lines, or have the potential to encroach once cutting has started, be sure to take the following precautions:

• Remove the lines from service with the electric company or have them blanketed and obtain a clearance prior to making contact with the tree.
• When trimming branches encroaching on minimum clearance distances, personal protection is paramount. Check for stray voltage. Personal grounds and insulated tools must be used, and workers must wear hot gloves.
• Where necessary, attach rigging to limbs to aid the limb in falling or moving in the intended direction.

Tree climbing

Remember, only qualified personnel should climb a tree, and then only for the purpose of attaching the proper rigging for tree trimming. The employee must have fall protection and be attached to the main trunk of the tree. If a situation exists where a tree must be topped or trimmed, accessing the cutting areas of the tree must be accomplished through an aerial device whenever possible.

The following rules apply to climbing trees:

• Proper tree climbing equipment (tree climbing gaffs) must be used for tree climbing.
• Fall protection must be used when in place to trim.
• Attachment is optional when the employee is ascending or descending the tree.
• If it appears possible the tree is in contact with power lines, the tree must be tested for stray voltage with a voltage detector prior to climbing to determine safety of the tree relative to possible electrocution.

Tree trimming from an aerial device

Where possible, all tree-trimming activities performed aloft will be performed from aerial devices as opposed to climbing a tree, ladder or pole to access branches to be removed. Due to the increased hazards, climbing is an option only in cases where a lift cannot be used.

Safety precautions that can be followed when using saws from an aerial device include the following:

• Be aware of slipping hazards while operating chain saws or using saws inside a bucket.
• If electric chain saws are used, take care not to become entangled with the cord.
• If operating near electrical power lines, the employee must not extend the saw above his or her head toward power lines. The saw represents up to a three-foot extension of your arm, which can contact power lines and cause electrocution.
• A noninsulated aerial device can be used only if the electrical line is de-energized and grounded. Where electrical hazards exist (as determined by job hazard analysis) and minimum clearances cannot be maintained, lines must be turned off or blanketed or the trimming should be contracted out.

Trimming technique

Three basic rules apply to tree trimming. These rules must always be followed even if trimming is not being conducted to prevent a conflict between a tree and a transmission line. The three rules are:

• Never top, tip or round over a tree.
• Never remove branch collars or leave long stubs.
• Always remove the entire branch at the node.

Topping, tipping and rounding over: Topping is defined as the removal of tree growth at a specific height with no regard to branch nodes. When trees are toped and left with cuts on branches leaving long stubs, the tree produces many fast-growing sprouts known as suckers. In short, topping stimulates sprouting and sucker regrowth, which for tree trimming is exactly what you want to avoid because sucker growth is fast and usually toward our lines.

Tipping, like topping, is the removal of tips of side branches with no regard to branch nodes, and again many long branch stubs are left on the tree, stimulating sprouting and sucker regrowth.

Rounding over is the combination of topping and tipping and causes an abundance of sprouting and sucker regrowth in every direction.

Leaving the branch collar intact may require several cuts, depending on the weight and size of the branch. Early cuts are made to remove the branch without tearing the tree bark off the branch collar, which would in turn lead to excessive sprouting. The final cut is made to remove the remaining branch stub and expedite the healing process for the tree. A properly pruned/trimmed branch will form a ring of living tissue around the cut one year after the cut has been made.

Branch collars and proper branch removal: When performing tree trimming, all cuts must be properly made at branch nodes, leaving the branch collar intact. Leaving the branch collar intact allows closure to the wound to start promptly, to reduce, if not eliminate, sucker growth.

Chipper operations

All workers feeding brush and limbs into chippers must wear personal protective equipment such as hearing protection, eye protection, gloves, hard hat and foot protection. Leather chaps also are a possibility. The operator must not wear loose clothing or gauntlet-type gloves while feeding the chipper.

Brush and small limb chippers must be fed from the side of the feed table centerline, and the operator should immediately turn away from the feed table when the brush is taken into the rotor or feed rollers. Chippers must be fed from the curbside whenever practical. Be sure not to feed any foreign material such as stones, nails, sweepings and so on into the chipper. Also, dont raise or remove the chipper chute while any part of the machine is turning or moving.

The chipper should not be used unless a discharge chute is of sufficient length or design to prevent contact with the blade in place. No repair work should be performed unless the power source is disconnected and proper lock-out/tag-out procedures are performed. The ignition system should be equipped with an appropriate locking device in accordance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration Regulation 29 CFR 1910.269.

OSHA reports that timber cutters and loggers are No. 1 in deaths per 100,000 people per year at 129 per 100,000. Dont become a statistic. Make sure your crews follow these safety practices as they trim around your cables this summer. - TB

John Young is director of safety for 21st Telecom Group. He can be reached at .

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