150 Acres of Burnt Up Oak

[yellowdogsvc]

I remember that fire.

The good news.. the trees are pretty straight. The bad news.. dealing with burnt wood is tough with equipment. The carbon and soot get into everything.

Hand cutting or bringing in a feller then skidding to a tub grinder or mobile horizontal grinder would take care of the majority of the big wood. cut to reasonable lengths will make the wood easier to deal with. Mulch the tops or put into the grinders. Expect to pay a premium if there is a lot of soot but if the rains are kind in the spring, that won't be too bad if the trees aren't charred.

I will caution this; if your friend wants to do something, bite the bullet and it soon. If rains return after a good burn, the underbrush/grass will grow very quickly. A fast moving fire isn't hot enough, long enough, to sterilize the ground in fact, it will stimulate it.

150 acres is a lot to work with but it can be fixed if the budget is high enough and in a few years, nobody will know there was a fire because the underbrush will be lush if it's done right. Done wrong and you will have holes, stumps, and more rocks.

 

[RDrancher]

Well, to clarify...I told the customer right up front that it's not the job for me, but I would get it in front of you guys and try to help steer him in the right direction. He's a really nice guy and seems pretty lost at this point as to what to do. He got a price of $55k from a dozer guy, but with all of the rock, I told him what a mess it would be.

Everything but the house was destroyed during the fire. As the property sits right now, it's worth about half of what he paid. Too bad, it sounds like it was a beautiful place.

Yellowdog, I directed him to your website yesterday just to give him an idea as to the kind of contractor he wants in there. He's been burned (no pun intended) by a few contractors in the past, so he's pretty leery of the good talkers that leave disaster in their wake. We've all seen 'em.

If you folks know of anyone you'd recommend, I'm all ears.

 

[yellowdogsvc]

John. Thank you for the compliment!
That property is fixable.. but it has to be done right. Firewood may not be wanted right now with Spring but it will be in demand again. If you can PM me some GPS coordinates, Google Earth updated a lot of TX back in Feb. 13. I can see the property from bird's eye view.

A dozer may be needed at some point but I see other options. 55k may not be out of line but I think you could buy a lot of hand labor and with a dozer, you are probably looking at another burn. The community may not be ready for another big burn.
If insurance is involved, I'd go the slow route. Maybe get a skid with a marshall type saw or hand crews to cut and buck the wood. Stack logs for haul to firewood processing (at some point) or to stage for a big chipper or grinder.
Use a mulcher to grind stumps flush to the ground and clean up piles of tops. It would probably look very good. Hopefully the property can be traversed easily. Cut some roads and split the property into grids.
If that was local, I'd love to meet with the guy because I see a pretty property in a couple of years. He should have grass and wildflowers by next year if not this year anyway. I'm not sure how much rain that area gets but if it's more than 15" a year, I don't see why it can't recover quickly if done right.

 

[tonyoz]

Gee it's good to you see you guys putting your heads together on this one, well done. I am not familiar with the type and size of timber on this job but I'm thinking a vertical tree grab would be great as it can lift the whole tree out of the ground and shake the dirt and rocks out of the root ball if it's going to be ground, chipped or burnt. Another plus is less ground disturbance.

 

[RDrancher]

Tony...isn't the net an amazing place?

Yellow, I'll get the coordinates for you. I pm'd you before I read you latest post. A marshall saw...maybe I'm not as far away from this job as I thought.

I'll run some of these ideas past the customer and see what he thinks. Thanks.

 

[tmc_31]

Hey guys,

How about something like a Cat 938 with a sheepsfoot grubber (on steroids)? It should pop oaks that size out very quickly without as much ground disturbance as a dozer. You could turn the firewood guys loose in there first to take what they wanted with the understanding that they leave a foot or so of the stump out of the ground. Then go in with the loader after a good rain and pop the stumps out. Rake the leavings into piles and burn or mulch.

As an alternative, one could use a 20 ton excavator with a grubber and thumb. Then get after the remains with a wheel loader and a rake.


Tim

 

[TomSeller]

Are you sure the trees are dead? Some varieties live fine through light to medium fires.

 

[Cat_Driver]

Don't be surprised after a good rain or two a lot of those trees come right back. I've seen trees come back to full mature trees that only had ONE LEAF on the tree and written off as dead.

 

[tmc_31]

Guys,

It is very likely that those trees are DEAD. In January I was working on a wind farm that was South East of Graham digging up wire with a back hoe. The ranches we were working on had acres of very dead trees that were burned in that fire.

Tim

 

[RDrancher]

Tim, I'm sure you're correct. If they haven't shown signs of coming back yet, they're not going to.