7 ms·

Lumberjack: America's Deadliest Profession

comrade1 11y ago
That's an impressive picture, but the 'lumberjacks' that I've seen lately by our cabin in WI are two guys with a giant robot-like machine that grabs onto the tree, cuts all of the branches off, cuts it into separate sections from the top down, and stacks them for the trucks to come and pick them up. I don't know what their rate of clear-cutting is, but they seem to clear out about a city block size in a week. Something like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzaXMzYFtSM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzaXMzYFtSM except the ones I've seen don't walk. So I would expect the numbers to get better going forward.
- unwind 11y ago
  I believe the equipment you're seeing is just ordinary forestry harvesters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvester_%28forestry%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvester_%28forestry%29) then. They're typically wheeled or tracked. Not sure if having legs is much of an advantage, although it sure looks cool. One big thing about this kind of equipment is controlling ground pressure. I guess the feet of a legged robot can have larger surface area (and thus lower pressure) than the contact surfaces of a wheeled vehicle so that might be an advantage.
  - Someone 11y ago
    It probably also helps if you want to do selective harvesting (take out x% of a forest, keeping the younger trees or specific species alone)
Shivetya 11y ago
I wonder if any of this is caused by the higher testosterone level lumberjacks have? Perhaps it raises the inherent bravado level that judgment is impaired? [1] I am a bit shocked that pilots are ranked so high on the fatality list. Perhaps its helicopter and similar listed? Is that only professional pilots? anecdotal, many years ago parents had a large number of pines removed from their property. a young man was killed when he ran under a falling tree. he was running to get his hat he left on the stump of a previous tree, no one could understand why he did it, they all stand in a clear area when a tree comes down. I am not sure what was more surprising, the OSHA guy's "seen it before" attitude or the loggers parents "we always knew it would happen". [1] http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/08/26/chopping-wood-a-manlier-feel-than-sports/ http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/08/26/chopping-wood-a-manlier-...
- mason55 11y ago
  > I am a bit shocked that pilots are ranked so high on the fatality list. Perhaps its helicopter and similar listed? Is that only professional pilots? It's due to pilots of smaller aircraft and, yes, possibly helicopters. Helicopter logging is extraordinarily dangerous as is bush piloting in places like Alaska. There are enough deaths there to way offset the safety of your jumbo jet commercial pilots.
  - omegaham 11y ago
    This. Single-engine plane flying around in rough terrain? Hope you don't have a mechanical failure, as you're in for a bad time if you do.
cafard 11y ago
One thing that strikes me looking at the numbers is that the there seem to be about 80 deaths per year, giving us about 90 thousand lumberjacks. A dozen fewer deaths in 2013 would have brought their rate down a lot closer to fishermen. [Edit: changed 110 thousand to 90 thousand--it's early here.]
zimbatm 11y ago
TIL; Garbageman is more dangerous than being a Fire Fighter.
- k__ 11y ago
  Why? They run around and move dustbins.
  - exDM69 11y ago
    And then use giant machines to crush, pack, transport and store the waste. When you see them "run around and move dustbins", it's probably the easiest and safest part of their job. What you don't see is what happens at the landfill or incinerator plant, and this is a bigger part of the job than collecting waste from domestic customers.
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      Actually, getting crushed by the waste truck is probably still a major risk. When you run around and move dustbins, and this running around is done near a truck that is constantly starting and stopping movement, people sometimes end up in a wrong place.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    They operate hydraulic machinery that has the ability to crush you in an instant and they're in and out of traffic on foot all day long.
  - cpwright 11y ago
    They also run around and move garbage cans in the street where they can get hit by cars. They also ride on the side of a truck, just holding onto a handrail and a step. If they lose their balance or grip that could be end badly too.
    - akgerber 11y ago
      In the New York City commercial waste industry, one often sees men hanging off the back of trucks flying through Manhattan at flagrantly illegal speeds.
jacquesm 11y ago
If you mix alcohol, chainsaws, macho and sometimes messy scenery you get a ton of accidents, and that's besides the inherent risks in felling trees. I've had some people logging on our property in Canada and witnessed first hand how easily accidents can happen, nobody actually got hurt or killed but the number of near misses (ok, near hits) over a fairly short period of time was absolutely incredible and this was a fairly experienced crew. One guy nearly got decapitated because a tree got stuck behind a stump while skidding the logs out, another nearly got killed by a 'widow maker' (I guess they're called that for a reason). People would 'drop start' their chainsaws even though that's an absolute no-no and so on. If you ran a machine shop like that it would probably pay off to have it located next door to a hospital or a morgue. Loggers using more modern equipment (tree harvesters) are likely better off and at a much reduced risk.
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  Not sure about Canada, but in the US it's generally very easy to buy a chainsaw and hire yourself out as a "logging company". There are plenty of father-son teams who hit a rough patch in the labor market and go off and do exactly that. Not everyone who does so is properly equipped or knows how to use the equipment safely, and most are familiar with only a limited subset of the techniques required to do a job correctly. Many are desperate and will take on jobs they cannot do safely (or with the results the landowner wants!). Harvesters are great but they are not necessary to do a safe, neat, and professional logging job, nor are they appropriate to every job. The conduct you describe and the fact that you mentioned alcohol and macho behavior are strong evidence that the crew you hired, however experienced, is not competent and has no business logging. Logging will always be dangerous work regardless of the equipment used, but there's no excuse for adding to the danger through amateurish and foolish practices. A professional logging company will employ loggers who work as safely as possible, equip them with the right tools, and ensure they are properly trained in correct procedures and the use of those tools. Those things cost money, and the low barriers to entry and limited employment opportunities in many forested areas mean there is always plenty of cheap competition. Landowners don't have much incentive to seek out more safety-conscious logging companies. Even if a landowner has a bad experience with one company, it is usually many years before they hire loggers again, making it difficult to punish a sloppy or unsafe company by taking the business elsewhere. So accidents tend to put a small-scale, unprofessional logger out of business before the market does, and that's a significant contributor to the accident rate.
Zak 11y ago
I grew up in rural Alaska. My environment was full of dangerous things, and I learned how to use many of them at an early age. I learned to operate boats, snowmobiles and four wheelers when I was 5, and was allowed to operate them unsupervised as soon as I had the physical strength to operate all the essential controls unsupervised. My parents gave me a rifle for my fifth birthday. The one thing my parents wouldn't let me use for the longest time was a chainsaw.
- Avshalom 11y ago
  Also Alaskan. And yeah come to think of it I got way more safety lectures about the chainsaw that I wasn't allowed to use than any of the guns or vehicles I was allowed to use.
kozak 11y ago
So, being a taxi driver is almost twice more dangerous than being a police officer?
- drjesusphd 11y ago
  Better make sure they're above the law then.
- Avshalom 11y ago
  The rate of traffic accidents in this country mean that any job in which you're expected to be driving all hours of the day/night are likely to be dangerous (also notice how truck drivers are ridiculously high too)
harkyns_castle 11y ago
I'm rooting for the trees. Here in Tasmania we're seeing some ancient trees being turned into woodchips because it makes short-term sense for greedy politicians and people with an IQ thinner than said trees. "What will I do when I can't hack trees down?! Oh no!"
- zo1 11y ago
  I'm neither a greedy politician, nor do I have an "IQ thinner than" a tree. And I have absolutely no idea why we would not want to cut down a really old tree. Have you sat down and actually thought about this? Other than the emotional, nostalgic response, is there anything else there?
  - jmcqk6 11y ago
    Old-growth forests have a completely different ecology than forest that's been clear cut - and it takes decades if not centuries to recover. If you don't care about the ecologies of forests, then maybe you don't care about whether or not we cut down some old trees. But I think you should care about the ecologies of forests, because forests have huge impacts on climate, atmosphere, water quality, erosion, and much much more. The "old-school" logger mindset is that the forests would be better off "managed" by humans than left by itself. That is, it would be more productive. But a century of data is showing that this is not really correct. It's only in the last twenty years or so we've come to understand that long-term problems these things create. For example, clear cutting tends to completely wipe out the biodiversity of that location. Even if they are re-seeded / re-planted, they tend to only be re-planted with one type of tree. Of course, when you start from zero, the biodiversity does increase quite rapidly, because it has a lot of room to grow, but like I said earlier, it takes decades if not centuries to fully recover. In the PNW, clear cutting has been linked to increased risk of landslides. This is a really big issue, and I won't even try to give it full voice here. A really good book on this issue is "Hidden Forest: The Biography of an Ecosystem" (http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Forest-Biography-Jon-Luoma/dp/087071094X/ http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Forest-Biography-Jon-Luoma/dp/0...) It's based on the best research available at the time (1999, I believe).
jconn 11y ago
Tough to look at stats like these. A great reminder how lucky most of us on HN are to earn a living behind a keyboard. Was anyone else surprised that employment in the military isn't on this list?
- TheCoelacanth 11y ago
  Only because that's not a job that the BLS collects data on. Later on in the article it's mentioned that being in active duty military is slightly less dangerous than logging, though more dangerous than any of the other jobs.
nic0dmus 11y ago
They should grow hemp instead

That's an impressive picture, but the 'lumberjacks' that I've seen lately by our cabin in WI are two guys with a giant robot-like machine that grabs onto the tree, cuts all of the branches off, cuts it into separate sections from the top down, and stacks them for the trucks to come and pick them up. I don't know what their rate of clear-cutting is, but they seem to clear out about a city block size in a week. Something like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzaXMzYFtSM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzaXMzYFtSM except the ones I've seen don't walk. So I would expect the numbers to get better going forward.

unwind 11y ago
I believe the equipment you're seeing is just ordinary forestry harvesters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvester_%28forestry%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvester_%28forestry%29) then. They're typically wheeled or tracked. Not sure if having legs is much of an advantage, although it sure looks cool. One big thing about this kind of equipment is controlling ground pressure. I guess the feet of a legged robot can have larger surface area (and thus lower pressure) than the contact surfaces of a wheeled vehicle so that might be an advantage.
- Someone 11y ago
  It probably also helps if you want to do selective harvesting (take out x% of a forest, keeping the younger trees or specific species alone)

Shivetya 11y ago

I wonder if any of this is caused by the higher testosterone level lumberjacks have? Perhaps it raises the inherent bravado level that judgment is impaired? [1] I am a bit shocked that pilots are ranked so high on the fatality list. Perhaps its helicopter and similar listed? Is that only professional pilots? anecdotal, many years ago parents had a large number of pines removed from their property. a young man was killed when he ran under a falling tree. he was running to get his hat he left on the stump of a previous tree, no one could understand why he did it, they all stand in a clear area when a tree comes down. I am not sure what was more surprising, the OSHA guy's "seen it before" attitude or the loggers parents "we always knew it would happen". [1] http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/08/26/chopping-wood-a-manlier-feel-than-sports/ http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/08/26/chopping-wood-a-manlier-...

mason55 11y ago
> I am a bit shocked that pilots are ranked so high on the fatality list. Perhaps its helicopter and similar listed? Is that only professional pilots? It's due to pilots of smaller aircraft and, yes, possibly helicopters. Helicopter logging is extraordinarily dangerous as is bush piloting in places like Alaska. There are enough deaths there to way offset the safety of your jumbo jet commercial pilots.
- omegaham 11y ago
  This. Single-engine plane flying around in rough terrain? Hope you don't have a mechanical failure, as you're in for a bad time if you do.

cafard 11y ago

One thing that strikes me looking at the numbers is that the there seem to be about 80 deaths per year, giving us about 90 thousand lumberjacks. A dozen fewer deaths in 2013 would have brought their rate down a lot closer to fishermen. [Edit: changed 110 thousand to 90 thousand--it's early here.]

zimbatm 11y ago

TIL; Garbageman is more dangerous than being a Fire Fighter.

k__ 11y ago
Why? They run around and move dustbins.
- exDM69 11y ago
  And then use giant machines to crush, pack, transport and store the waste. When you see them "run around and move dustbins", it's probably the easiest and safest part of their job. What you don't see is what happens at the landfill or incinerator plant, and this is a bigger part of the job than collecting waste from domestic customers.
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    Actually, getting crushed by the waste truck is probably still a major risk. When you run around and move dustbins, and this running around is done near a truck that is constantly starting and stopping movement, people sometimes end up in a wrong place.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  They operate hydraulic machinery that has the ability to crush you in an instant and they're in and out of traffic on foot all day long.
- cpwright 11y ago
  They also run around and move garbage cans in the street where they can get hit by cars. They also ride on the side of a truck, just holding onto a handrail and a step. If they lose their balance or grip that could be end badly too.
  - akgerber 11y ago
    In the New York City commercial waste industry, one often sees men hanging off the back of trucks flying through Manhattan at flagrantly illegal speeds.

jacquesm 11y ago

If you mix alcohol, chainsaws, macho and sometimes messy scenery you get a ton of accidents, and that's besides the inherent risks in felling trees. I've had some people logging on our property in Canada and witnessed first hand how easily accidents can happen, nobody actually got hurt or killed but the number of near misses (ok, near hits) over a fairly short period of time was absolutely incredible and this was a fairly experienced crew. One guy nearly got decapitated because a tree got stuck behind a stump while skidding the logs out, another nearly got killed by a 'widow maker' (I guess they're called that for a reason). People would 'drop start' their chainsaws even though that's an absolute no-no and so on. If you ran a machine shop like that it would probably pay off to have it located next door to a hospital or a morgue. Loggers using more modern equipment (tree harvesters) are likely better off and at a much reduced risk.

fredkbloggs 11y ago
Not sure about Canada, but in the US it's generally very easy to buy a chainsaw and hire yourself out as a "logging company". There are plenty of father-son teams who hit a rough patch in the labor market and go off and do exactly that. Not everyone who does so is properly equipped or knows how to use the equipment safely, and most are familiar with only a limited subset of the techniques required to do a job correctly. Many are desperate and will take on jobs they cannot do safely (or with the results the landowner wants!). Harvesters are great but they are not necessary to do a safe, neat, and professional logging job, nor are they appropriate to every job. The conduct you describe and the fact that you mentioned alcohol and macho behavior are strong evidence that the crew you hired, however experienced, is not competent and has no business logging. Logging will always be dangerous work regardless of the equipment used, but there's no excuse for adding to the danger through amateurish and foolish practices. A professional logging company will employ loggers who work as safely as possible, equip them with the right tools, and ensure they are properly trained in correct procedures and the use of those tools. Those things cost money, and the low barriers to entry and limited employment opportunities in many forested areas mean there is always plenty of cheap competition. Landowners don't have much incentive to seek out more safety-conscious logging companies. Even if a landowner has a bad experience with one company, it is usually many years before they hire loggers again, making it difficult to punish a sloppy or unsafe company by taking the business elsewhere. So accidents tend to put a small-scale, unprofessional logger out of business before the market does, and that's a significant contributor to the accident rate.

Zak 11y ago

I grew up in rural Alaska. My environment was full of dangerous things, and I learned how to use many of them at an early age. I learned to operate boats, snowmobiles and four wheelers when I was 5, and was allowed to operate them unsupervised as soon as I had the physical strength to operate all the essential controls unsupervised. My parents gave me a rifle for my fifth birthday. The one thing my parents wouldn't let me use for the longest time was a chainsaw.

Avshalom 11y ago
Also Alaskan. And yeah come to think of it I got way more safety lectures about the chainsaw that I wasn't allowed to use than any of the guns or vehicles I was allowed to use.

kozak 11y ago

So, being a taxi driver is almost twice more dangerous than being a police officer?

drjesusphd 11y ago
Better make sure they're above the law then.
Avshalom 11y ago
The rate of traffic accidents in this country mean that any job in which you're expected to be driving all hours of the day/night are likely to be dangerous (also notice how truck drivers are ridiculously high too)

harkyns_castle 11y ago

I'm rooting for the trees. Here in Tasmania we're seeing some ancient trees being turned into woodchips because it makes short-term sense for greedy politicians and people with an IQ thinner than said trees. "What will I do when I can't hack trees down?! Oh no!"

zo1 11y ago
I'm neither a greedy politician, nor do I have an "IQ thinner than" a tree. And I have absolutely no idea why we would not want to cut down a really old tree. Have you sat down and actually thought about this? Other than the emotional, nostalgic response, is there anything else there?
- jmcqk6 11y ago
  Old-growth forests have a completely different ecology than forest that's been clear cut - and it takes decades if not centuries to recover. If you don't care about the ecologies of forests, then maybe you don't care about whether or not we cut down some old trees. But I think you should care about the ecologies of forests, because forests have huge impacts on climate, atmosphere, water quality, erosion, and much much more. The "old-school" logger mindset is that the forests would be better off "managed" by humans than left by itself. That is, it would be more productive. But a century of data is showing that this is not really correct. It's only in the last twenty years or so we've come to understand that long-term problems these things create. For example, clear cutting tends to completely wipe out the biodiversity of that location. Even if they are re-seeded / re-planted, they tend to only be re-planted with one type of tree. Of course, when you start from zero, the biodiversity does increase quite rapidly, because it has a lot of room to grow, but like I said earlier, it takes decades if not centuries to fully recover. In the PNW, clear cutting has been linked to increased risk of landslides. This is a really big issue, and I won't even try to give it full voice here. A really good book on this issue is "Hidden Forest: The Biography of an Ecosystem" (http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Forest-Biography-Jon-Luoma/dp/087071094X/ http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Forest-Biography-Jon-Luoma/dp/0...) It's based on the best research available at the time (1999, I believe).

jconn 11y ago

Tough to look at stats like these. A great reminder how lucky most of us on HN are to earn a living behind a keyboard. Was anyone else surprised that employment in the military isn't on this list?

TheCoelacanth 11y ago
Only because that's not a job that the BLS collects data on. Later on in the article it's mentioned that being in active duty military is slightly less dangerous than logging, though more dangerous than any of the other jobs.

nic0dmus 11y ago

They should grow hemp instead