Shovel Logging in Tornado Salvage

1. Name - Shovel Logging in Tornado Salvage

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According to Marshall Pecore, Forest Manager for Menominee Tribal
Enterprises, the tornado cut through high-value hardwood forestland
(fortunately, for the most part uninhabited). He says that 3,000 acres
of tribal lands were affected, with 2,200 acres “completely flattened.” Downed wood comprised an estimated 30,000,000 board feet of sawlogs and 50,000 cords of pulpwood, pointed in all directions and blown into piles of multiple layers. This immense volume had to be harvested quickly, efficiently, and safely.

MTE had to map the destruction, clear roads, and impose extraordinary safety precautions, as well as ensure that the existing and additional logging companies all had training in the skills they would need to work in the unusual circumstances (including “special hazard” chain saw training, provided by independent trainer, Ken Lallemont). MTE cleared and created seven helicopter pads in the damaged area to make sure that in the event of an injury, rapid evacuation would be available. It was, of course, also imperative to find a market for this additional fiber, so MTE contacted customers to obtain assurances that volumes specified in existing contracts would be honored or increased.

Shovel Logging
Patrick Meverden, owner of Meverden Trucking and Logging, was one of at least two loggers who decided to use a Thunderbird 1146 tracked log shovel in this blow-down harvest operation. A very large machine by today’s Lake States standards, the Thunderbird uses a 325 horsepower Cummins L10TA industrial motor and burns 8 to 12 gallons of fuel per hour. Track-to-track width is nearly 14 feet, with each individual track measuring 17 feet long and 30 inches wide.

Meverden’s machine has a reach of 51 feet (including the grapple), but the same machine can be purchased with an additional 23-foot reach. Another notable feature is the relatively high elevation of the
operator’s compartment. Typically operated in wet or mountainous terrain in the Southeast, these machines are used for a logging
method known as “shovel logging”—moving through the harvest area, grabbing trees or piles of wood and swinging them around so that they are closer to the access road. Several passes of this sort may be required to get the wood to the roadside, depending on how far from the road the harvest extends. It can be a practical alternative to skidding, when conditions make skidding inadvisable.



Operation
In this salvage situation, Meverden used the Thunderbird to organize the timber “jackstraws” for convenient and safe handling. It grabbed each tree in its path and laid it down perpendicular to that path, with the root balls or butts of the trees positioned toward the path, and any uprooted stumps placed close to it. A 415 Timbco with a 7000 Logmax head and a 33-foot squirt boom followed the Thunderbird closely.

Application
Sorting the timber in this way greatly increased safety. In addition, the overall size of the machine, with the cab’s high perch, gave the operator an unusually broad overview of the operating environment. The Thunderbird’s size, and the length of its arm, helped greatly in handling wood under high tension. Furthermore, the system increased time/cost efficiency substantially in comparison to alternative methods. Merverden estimates that this configuration reduced the time spent on blowdown salvage by half, since the Thunderbird’s long reach made it unnecessary to provide extra access for the other machines.


Links

• Forest Resources Association Inc
• The original Technical Release on Shovel Logging in Tornado Salvage
  
• Technical Release on Incorporating Biomass Production into the Harvest from Maine
• Technical Release on Utilizing Biomass from Slash Piles from Montana