Chasing

the Chainsaws

By Mary Stuever

October 2004

     “When I made that first cut,” Tia Tessay confided to me, “I knew I’d found exactly what I wanted to do with my life.”   

Her crew mates laugh, “You know, she has her own chainsaw—none of us have the nerve to touch it!”   

            She tells me the chainsaw’s name; one I can’t put in print.  “But he really is one, he’s so hard to start!”  This is coming from the same twenty-three year old woman who drives a monstrously ancient and grotesquely green crew crummy called “The Hulk.” 

            In these forests of the new century, chainsaws are the conservation tools of choice.  For burned area emergency rehabilitation (BAER), we use chainsaws to place burned logs along the contour, to fell hazardous trees along roads, to salvage nick points in stream beds, to cut posts for fence replacements, and to clear roads that are littered with fallen stems.  On other parts of the Fort Apache Reservation in central Arizona, the constant whining of chainsaw engines transform what were dense forest stands into the open, park-like glades that are more resistant to catastrophic fire. 

Once the sole realm of wildland firefighters, power-saw training is now a mandatory requirement for my “BAER” (pronounced “Bear”) crew.  Training, experience, and field demonstration of skills sort the saw wielders into three categories: “A” Fallers, “B” Fallers, and “C” Fallers, with the latter category handling the toughest assignments. 

One of the most dangerous jobs in the woods, chainsaw operation demands a constant vigilance for safety.  As crew leader Lorinda “LT” Thompson explains, “Operating a chainsaw keeps you alert.  You think about safety all the time.  You know it is dangerous, but you can not dwell on that.” 

In addition to herself, LT’s twenty person crew includes five other “ladies” who each navigate their own way in the male-dominated realm of saw operation.  “We tend to use our legs more,” they agree, “because we do not have the same physical strength in our arms that the men have.” 

Apache women--(L to R) Judith Morris, Lorinda "LT" Thompson, Latashia Burnett, Llory Burnette, Tia Tessay, and Lena Josay--are part of a chainsaw crew rehabilitating the Rodeo-Chediski burn (2002) in central Arizona.

“The guys use to laugh at me, because they said the saw was half my weight,” Tia laughed, “but now they know I can carry it all day and keep cutting.”   

Most of the orange and white saws in the program have large engines and sport 20” and 28” bars, but there is a “baby” saw, with a 14” bar, that the crew uses for cutting stakes and delimbing logs. Regardless of size, the saws get constant attention—regular cleaning, sharpening, and adjusting.  For the crew, the saws represent jobs; if the saws are not running, the crew is not working. 

When cutting down a tree, our safety protocol requires that a sawyer is accompanied by a second person known as a “swamper.”  The sawyer focuses on the cuts and the immediate task, while the swamper keeps an eye on the tree and the bigger picture.  Since chainsaws make lots of noise, the swamper communicates with the sawyer by touch, often with a long stick.  The stick allows the swamper to stand the stick’s length away to get better visibility, but still have immediate contact with the sawyer. 

The sawyer first examines the tree for defects, leans, dead limbs, and adjacent potential places where the tree might “hang-up.”  Once this “size-up” is completed, the sawyer identifies two escape routes to the swamper, so both know how to get away in a hurry.  Anyone else within the distance of one and half times the tree’s height is asked to move. 

To earn an "A" Faller certification, Tia Tessay falls a dead tree on the Kinishba Burn while instructor Bertha Beatty looks on.

A yell from the sawyer precedes the first two cuts, which removes a pie-slice wedge and is the first step for directional falling.  The back cut, using guide lines on the saw, confirms the fall direction.  When the swamper detects movement at the top of the tree, he signals the sawyer, who removes the saw and turns it off to avoid carrying a running saw.  Both quickly move out of the way.   

Each day, there are twenty to twenty-five saws running in the BAER program. The terrain is rugged, and the job never-ending.  Only with constant surveillance for safe operations—and the same luck that sent the 5,000 firefighters on this burn home without serious injury—can we maintain an accident-free record and improve the land.