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Bumgarner to share expertise at Mountain Heritage Day

By Rose Hooper
Bumgarner For 40 years Ernie Bumgarner of Sylva worked in the redwood industry in Northern California where 500- to 1,100-year-old trees reached 300 feet in height and 25 feet in diameter. It was a dangerous job, but Ernie Bumgarner understood the danger.

He lived with it every minute... even during his lunch break. Bumgarner could be causally sitting in the forest, taking a bite out of his ham and cheese sandwich, when a "widow-maker could knock me up the side of the head."

Loose, dangling limbs from giant redwoods posed a danger when the wind picked up, knocking them 250 feet to the ground. A logger struck by such limbs, appropriately called "widow-makers," could be killed instantly.

But Bumgarner used "good common sense and stayed safe" in a profession he calls "a thinking man's job."

For 40 years, from 1950-1990, Bumgarner worked in the redwood industry in Northern California. The tall, muscular Jackson County native started out as a laborer. He even spent some time as a tug boat operator bringing logs down the Klamath River near the Oregon border.

"Then I was asked to 'fell' redwoods, and I did that until they made me a foreman," said Bumgarner, who now lives in Sylva near Bryson Trucking Co.

"Didn't matter if he was a foreman; he still came in just as dirty," said his wife, Milly, who also worked in the redwood industry, but inside an office. "Ernie would be right up there with his 'fallers and buckers' - that's what they called the men who work as partners in falling the trees for Miller Redwood Co."

Falling a tree is a demanding, precise science. First off, the particular tree in question must be included in the company's harvest plan with the California Forestry Department.

"It's heavily regulated," Bumgarner said of an industry that has come under fire from environmentalists. "For every tree we brought down adjacent to Redwood National Park, we had park service personnel there taking readings, counting the rings and recording the tree's history."

Bumgarner had to calculate which direction each tree should fall and the location and size of cuts that would get it to go in that direction. For each tree felled, a seedling was planted.

"The redwoods are so big, more than 300 feet high. And they are brittle; they have no tap roots, so you have to cushion their fall otherwise, they shatter and split," he said.

Bumgarner instructed bulldozer operators how to prepare a series of dirt mounds several feet high and about 20 feet apart in a straight line precisely where the tree would fall.

Next he gauged where the first undercut should be, calling for a "gunstick," a 12-foot-long sighting rod that measures precisely where the undercut will be made. The V-shaped undercut is made proportionally to the size of the tree, many of which are 25 feet in diameter.

"An undercut determines the direction the tree will fall, so you have to make sure it's wide enough to allow the tree to fall freely so it doesn't hang up on the stump," said Bumgarner.

If the tree strikes the stump on its downward fall, it may break. It is essential that the tree strike the ground simultaneously along its whole length, thus dissipating the energy of the fall. Otherwise, the top will snap to the ground, breaking and splitting the tree, he said.

With the cut lined up, Bumgarner supervised the fallers and buckers with their 6-foot bar chain saws.

To help push the tree in the right direction, hydraulic jacks are placed at the back of the tree, just behind the undercut. As the final cut is made, the jacks force the tree over.

"I took a lot of pride in my work," said Bumgarner, who retired 12 years ago. "We respected those majestic trees - some were 500 to 1,100 years old."

Many of the trees Bumgarner fell were sawed into lumber and sold worldwide as siding, paneling, decking and fencing.

Bumgarner As a minuscule by a towering redwood, Bumgarner (below) prepares mounds of earth, about 20 feet apart, to cushion the giant tree's fall so it won't burst into splinters.

"Working everyday in the redwoods was like playing a hard game of football. You were exhausted at the end of the day." -Ernie Bumgarner

Ernie Bumgarner started out as a laborer, then operated a tug boat on the Klamath River before becoming foreman of 28 "fallers and buckers," or men who worked as partners in falling trees in Northern California redwood territory.

An expert tree faller, Bumgarner will appear in his working "uniform" and share his expertise during the chain saw contest at Western Carolina University's Mountain Heritage Day Saturday, Sept. 28. The contest begins at 9 a.m. that morning, with registration at 8 a.m.

Mountain Heritage Day - Chain saw Contest

Saturday, Sept. 28 - 9 a.m.

Western Carolina University

Back to Archive: 09/05/02.