Date of incident: June 2023
Notice of incident number: 2023157620017
Employers: Two manual tree falling and bucking companies

Incident summary
Two hand fallers were removing trees as part of fire suppression activities at a wildfire. One of the fallers was attempting to remove a dangerous tree when he was struck by the top portion of the tree. The faller sustained serious injuries.

Investigation conclusions

Cause

• Worker struck by dangerous tree that fell in unintended direction. The faller was attempting to use other trees to hit or push over the dangerous tree. After initial attempts to hit the dangerous tree failed, the faller placed cuts into the base of the dangerous tree and attempted to push the dangerous tree over with adjacent standing trees. This was also unsuccessful, so the faller recut the dangerous tree and one of the pusher trees in an attempt to push the dangerous tree in the opposite direction. During the third attempt, the dangerous tree fell in an unintended direction, and the hazardous top of the tree struck the faller.

Contributing factors

• Safe work procedures not followed. Safe work procedures established by the BC Faller Training Standard and acceptable to WorkSafeBC were not followed. Domino falling (using more than one tree to cause other partially cut trees to fall in succession), which is prohibited by the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, was used to attempt to remove the dangerous tree.
• Inadequate falling plan. The falling plan, which was not documented, involved removing the hazardous top of the dangerous tree by falling other trees toward the dangerous tree to strike the top of it. This falling plan did not comply with the Regulation and introduced a high level of risk to the workers.
• Inadequate supervision. Falling supervisors must ensure that falling and bucking are planned and conducted in accordance with the Regulation, inspect the workplace of each faller at time intervals appropriate to the risks, and keep a record of every inspection conducted. A general falling plan for the area and a specific falling plan for removing the dangerous tree were in place for the worksite, but the specific falling plan for the dangerous tree increased the risk to the fallers. In addition, no inspections of the fallers or their work were conducted.
• Qualified assistance not used. Qualified assistance was available to the faller on the day of the incident. However, when the original attempts failed to remove the top of the dangerous tree, the faller did not avail himself of the assistance.

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