FALLER

Job Definition:

• Forestry labourers perform simple and routine tasks to cultivate and maintain natural and plantation forests, and log, fell and saw trees.

Job Description:

• Use axes or chainsaws to fell trees using knowledge of tree characteristics and cutting techniques to control direction of fall and minimize tree damage.

Duties and Tasks:

• 1) Measure felled trees and cut them into specified log lengths, using chain saws and axes.
• 2) Place supporting limbs or poles under felled trees in order to avoid splitting undersides, and to prevent logs from rolling.
• 3) Saw back-cuts, leaving sufficient sound wood to control direction of fall.
• 4) Select trees to be cut down, assessing factors such as site, terrain, and weather conditions before beginning work.
• 5) Split logs, using axes, wedges, and mauls, and stack wood in ricks or cord lots.
• 6) Stop saw engines, pull cutting bars from cuts, and run to safety as tree falls.
• 7) Trim off the tops and limbs of trees, using chainsaws, delimbers, or axes.
• 8) Assemble floating logs into rafts for towing to mills.
• 9) Assess logs after cutting to ensure that the quality and length are correct.
• 10) Load logs or wood onto trucks, trailers, or railroad cars, by hand or using loaders or winches.
• 11) Maintain and repair chainsaws and other equipment, cleaning, oiling, and greasing equipment, and sharpening equipment properly.
• 12) Mark logs for identification.
• 13) Secure steel cables or chains to logs for dragging by tractors or for pulling by cable yarding systems.
• 14) Tag unsafe trees with high-visibility ribbons.
• 15) Work as a member of a team, rotating between chain saw operation and skidder operation.
• 16) Appraise trees for certain characteristics, such as twist, rot, and heavy limb growth, and gauge amount and direction of lean, in order to determine how to control the direction of a tree’s fall with the least damage.
• 17) Clear brush from work areas and escape routes, and cut saplings and other trees from direction of falls, using axes, chainsaws, or bulldozers.
• 18) Control the direction of a tree’s fall by scoring cutting lines with axes, sawing undercuts along scored lines with chainsaws, knocking slabs from cuts with single-bit axes, and driving wedges.
• 19) Determine position, direction, and depth of cuts to be made, and placement of wedges or jacks.
• 20) Insert jacks or drive wedges behind saws to prevent binding of saws and to start trees falling.

Activities:

• 1) Handling and Moving Objects — Using hands and arms in handling, installing, positioning, and moving materials, and manipulating things.
• 2) Performing General Physical Activities — Performing physical activities that require considerable use of your arms and legs and moving your whole body, such as climbing, lifting, balancing, walking, stooping, and handling of materials.
• 3) Controlling Machines and Processes — Using either control mechanisms or direct physical activity to operate machines or processes (not including computers or vehicles).
• 4) Estimating the Quantifiable Characteristics of Products, Events, or Information — Estimating sizes, distances, and quantities; or determining time, costs, resources, or materials needed to perform a work activity.
• 5) Judging the Qualities of Things, Services, or People — Assessing the value, importance, or quality of things or people.

Abilities:

• 1) Multilimb Coordination — The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
• 2) Static Strength — The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects
• 3) Speed of Limb Movement — The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
• 4) Trunk Strength — The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without ‘giving out’ or fatiguing.
• 5) Spatial Orientation — The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
• 6) Reaction Time — The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
• 7) Manual Dexterity — The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
• 8) Information Ordering — The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• 9)Explosive Strength — The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
• 10) Dynamic Strength — The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
• 11) Stamina — The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
• 12) Control Precision — The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
• 13) Wrist-Finger Speed — The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
• 14) Visualization — The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
• 15) Extent Flexibility — The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
• 16) Arm-Hand Steadiness — The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
• 17) Dynamic Flexibility — The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
• 18) Far Vision — The ability to see details at a distance.
• 19) Peripheral Vision — The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one’s side when the eyes are looking ahead.
• 20) Depth Perception — The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
• 21) Deductive Reasoning — The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.

Knowledge

• 1) Mechanical — Knowledge of machines and tools, including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance.
• 2) Public Safety and Security — Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.