Washington Tree Felling Barber Chair 2026

July 14, 2025 - Harbor Unit, Olympic Region Washington Department of Natural Resources

 A group of firefighters were training as beginner fallers (FAL3). This was an area which was used for this purpose for several years due to the abundance of trees within the complexity level for beginner fallers. A tailgate safety briefing discussing general hazards of falling as well as the site-specific hazards was conducted. A firefighter successfully completed falling his first tree. When performing a back cut in the second tree, it barber-chaired, falling against the lean and toward the firefighter, cutting off access to both escape routes. When the escape routes were cut off, the faller chose to escape downslope and perpendicular to the direction which he observed the tree falling, opposite his preferred escape route.