Teach me about logging operations!

August 25, 2013 8:28 PM

How, physically, does clearcutting happen? What sort of equipment is used to cut down trees on steep hillsides? How is lumber and paper so inexpensive given all the work it takes? How do companies decide what sections to cut? (Some of the patterns cut are really odd!) Also, since different companies often own sections of timber accessed from the same (privately owned?) mainline, how do access deals play out?
posted by ArcAm to Science & Nature (13 answers total)

How is lumber and paper so inexpensive given all the work it takes?

Lumber and paper are different things. Paper these days isn't made from old growth timber; nearly all of it comes from what amount to tree farms, where trees are deliberately grown to be used to make paper, and then the land is replanted. This is a big thing in the South, by the way. The trees are cut at a point when they'd be too small to be of any use in making lumber.

Lumber isn'tinexpensive; have you priced it lately?

How do they cut old growth forests? They use chainsaws, and then the logs are dragged down the hill to a lumber road. However, keep in mind that Douglas Fir trees are really huge. One tree yields a hell of a lot of lumber, two or three houses worth per tree. The trees have to be cut into several pieces before they can be trucked away.

How do companies decide what sections to cut? Well, a lot of lumber comes from national forests, and the companies don't get to decide. Tracts are chosen by people working for the Forest Service, and put up for bid.

There are large amounts of land belonging to companies like Georgia Pacific (for instance, Georgia Pacific, Weyerhauser, Louisiana Pacific, Kimberly Clark, and a couple of other companies own a large percentage of Oregon's Coast Range) and they choose areas to cut based on how mature the trees are, how well they can be gotten out without doing excessive damage to the soil, and so on. The private companies are also very good about replanting their land.

The Forest Service, not so much. They're supposed to do it, and often they do, but they don't do as good a job as the private companies.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:50 PM on August 25, 2013

One of the woodworking magazines told a story a while back about two brothers who inherited a farm that was just big enough that one of them could kind of almost be a farmer and the other could get a job. They decided instead to plant the whole thing in walnut and then, about they time they were retiring, start harvesting and replanting 1% of the land per year. While it wasn't like winning power ball or anything, the estimated return on just the cut trees (not milled and kilned lumber) on that fraction of a farm too small to actually be worth farming was something like $250,000 per year.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:11 PM on August 25, 2013

That logging machine video is rad! I think I'll lose some time with those.

I'm interested in the whole "chainsawing trees on the side of a steep mountain and collecting them on a road" idea. Can huge swaths of land really be cleared like that? Seems so dangerous and inefficient. How do they collect the logs on such narrow roads?
posted by ArcAm at 9:51 PM on August 25, 2013

The term you want is "Skyline Logging".

Used to be when they did that, they'd drag the log up (or down) the hill, and it would leave a big furrow. Do that with a hundred logs, and next time it rains those furrows are nice channels for runoff, and carry away topsoil. A lot of hillsides were left not only without any trees, but without sufficient soil to grow any new ones.

These days they're more careful about that.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:19 PM on August 25, 2013

Helicopters are another way of removing logs from a very steep slope.

How do they collect the logs on such narrow roads?

The logs don't actually get collected on the road itself, generally they are hauled to a flat area where they are loaded on a logging truck. They don't sit around for long, it's not unusual to see multiple logging trucks zipping down a dirt one lane logging road each day while cutting is going on.

Lots of logging is still done without the all in one logging machines. The tree is cut down with a chainsaw, de-limbed, pulled with a skidder or other device to the loading area, and loaded on logging trucks with a loader.

Some trees are large enough that there will be a single log on a log truck.

As for road access, FS or BLM roads are public roads, even the one lane logging roads with turnouts. These roads will be open to the general public, even when in use by log trucks. You may notice the turnouts aren't large enough to hold a log truck. If you are in a passenger car, it is good to notice this, and think about the implications for what you should do when a loaded truck comes zipping down the hill towards you.

If a company has land accessed by a private road across private land owned by someone else, they are likely to have an easement. Some states require other landowners to provide access across their land for parcels without road access.

Logging practices differ somewhat in different regions.

You are entirely correct about logging being dangerous, although that certainly isn't limited to steep slopes. Logging generally comes in right below commercial fishing on lists of jobs with the highest death rates. Injuries are high as well. Attaching the cable to the logs so they can be skidded to the road has often been considered the most dangerous job on the logging crew.

Traditionally, lumber companies that owned land with stands of timber would cut and replant at a pace such that there was a continuous cycle of trees ready to harvest. This changed a great deal once leveraged buyouts arrived.

There's a whole portal on forestry at Wikipedia where you can find more details.
posted by yohko at 1:56 AM on August 26, 2013

Remember, too, that most logging is not done in wild, random, first-growth forests. Most of the trees that are logged today were planted specifically for harvesting. Thus, they are planted in a way to facilitate the use of the logging machinery (much in the way grain crops are planted to account for the harvesters). It's actually pretty efficient (or, as efficient as something like cutting trees on mountainsides can be)
posted by Thorzdad at 5:36 AM on August 26, 2013

You might check out one of those forestry shows on Discovery or History or whatever. Ax Men is the one I'm thinking about, they do crazy logging on steep slopes, etc.
posted by thylacine at 7:59 AM on August 26, 2013

Oh man, a reality TV show about this stuff? I might be able to stand an episode or two of that!
posted by ArcAm at 8:41 AM on August 26, 2013

Yeah, lots of fun giant crazy machinery flying around. There is also "Swamp Loggers" and probably some other copycats.
posted by thylacine at 9:33 AM on August 26, 2013

My MiL requested a big pile of product literature from John Deere about their feller-bunchers and other logging equipment, and my sons were amazed. (So was I: those things are freakin' amazing!)
posted by wenestvedt at 10:06 AM on August 26, 2013

You might want to take a day trip out to the Tillamook Forest Center for forest fun.
posted by vespabelle at 10:36 AM on August 26, 2013

Another thing you could watch -- really compelling, though fictionalized -- is the Paul Newman movie "Sometimes a Great Notion."

It's got lots of long, fascinating logging scenes. (And is also kind of heartbreaking, so be forewarned.)

It's a great movie. Netflix Streaming has it.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:43 PM on August 26, 2013

Thanks, all! I really appreciate your time.

Great responses.
posted by ArcAm at 5:08 PM on August 26, 2013